These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
YMMV: Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Alternate Character Interpretation: Is Hitomi a scheming, man-stealing bitch or a good friend who wanted Sayaka to confess to the boy she liked instead of endlessly pining after him? This has been exacerbated further since, in the bonus route in the PSP game, she becomes something of a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing once Sayaka tells her she refuses to give up on Kyousuke.
As of episode 9, Hitomi seems to worry about Sayaka and wants to ask Madoka about what's going on, but is refused. That would lean towards the third speculation: she and Kyosuke may be now an Official Couple (and in the mangas, they are), but she's still worried about how Sayaka could be taking it.).
Besides, let's be brutally honest here: Kyousuke didn't hate Sayaka, but he didn't like her in that way either. If he did, he'd have let her know when he checked out of hospital. YMMV on what this makes him, but whatever that is, the fact is that a relationship just doesn't work when one party isn't interested in the other, no matter how much vice versa is true. Hitomi's actually in a bit of a bind here - she likes Kyousuke, and maybe even has evidence that Kyousuke likes her back, but because neither he nor Sayaka is willing to bring matters between the two of them to a head and resolve them at last, however messily, she's the one who's forced to act. In this light, that she did at least give Sayaka a chance to take her own shot is, whilst maybe not angelic, certainly kinder than she could've been; and it's hardly her fault that she just happened to have very, very unfortunate timing in doing this.
It's also implied in the anthology that Kyousuke is uncomfortable about starting a relationship with Sayaka because he isn't in love with her, and doesn't want to fake his feelings, especially since it would come off as him being in debt to her (which is exactly what Mami warned her about in episode 3). He chose Hitomi because they could have a normal relationship.
Some suggest that Madoka's self-sacrificial nature really comes from a sense of self-worthlessness.
Both the scenery and the city are the same as always
Even though I expected nothing would change,
I still think I'm the only one who is small.
Many (all?) Witches are implied to have very tragic back stories. Because of this, several people like to Draco in Leather Pants them, especially Charlotte.
And the Fandom Rejoiced: Pretty much the reaction to having a fixed date for the last two episodes of the series. This forum post sums up the reaction pretty well.
Some rejoiced when they found an English website for the show. Some time later, Aniplex USA announced they got the license.
The characters involved in the Sayaka-Kyosuke-HitomiLove Triangle are fairly controversial, especially as people have different opinions on who was to blame for the tragic results.
(Even) Better on DVD: The Blu-ray release fixed some Meguca and gave an extreme makeover to Mami's residence. (No explanation given on that last part.)
All Soul Gems have been changed from hand-drawn to Conspicuous CG. While this fixes the scaling problems the Soul Gems had all over the place in the first few episodes, it's...well...conspicuous.
Mami's Soul Gem now has the added feature of constantly having weirdly edited in little flowers fluttering around it. These flowers also appear during her transformation and general use of her powers. It's both Narmy and unusual considering no one else's Soul Gems do anything similar.
Mami's apartment has been changed from having the most basic pieces of furniture and a blank hardwood floor to being decked out with pastel upholstery and stuffed animals everywhere. Detractors argue that the minimalistic version did a good job of highlighting Mami's depression due to complete lack of friends and family.
Among various architectural edits to the town, the school rooftop's chainlink fence was replaced with a very ornate white one. There would be no problem if they had actually re-drawn Sayaka's hand as she clutches the fence; the orientation of her fingers makes no sense with the new fence.
The Sayaka/Kyoko fight gets better shading, but in every other aspect the new artwork arguably looks worse than the originals.
The ending cased some people to want to kill Shaft for creating the most perfect ending that absolutely fits the themes and tones of the series and others to kill Shaft for making a non Grim Dark cop-out ending and Madoka being a Jesus figure and making them wait weeks for it.
Crack Pairing: Mami/Charlotte is just a little too popular. With the number of fanarts with them having tea party together easily overwhelming that of those "following the story", this is kind of to be expected.
Mami/Kyoko is a popular pairing who was considered crack, because they never met during the story proper. In fact it is not: the 3rd Drama CD shows that Kyoko and Mami used to be friends before Kyoko's family tragedy occurred. Kyoko's turn to cynicism caused their friendship to break.
The process of becoming a magical girl is much like the fates of the girls in Red Garden; the girls inhabit lifeless bodies and must fight monsters when summoned as the result of a curse.
Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Between the characters' unwillingness to listen to each other and the overall hopelessness, some viewers wonder why they should care. See the variant mentioned on the main page.
Die for Our Ship: A portion of the fanbase now despises Hitomi for confessing to Kamijo and, unbeknownst to her, completely breaking Sayaka mentally and emotionally. Not to mention turning her into a witch, killing her and the person who Mercy Killed her. That said, there's no reliable measurement.
Actually, she did talk to Kamijo... but it's not known what she exactly told him. Did she truly say "I love you" to Kamijou, or did she say "Sayaka-chan loves you, why are you so mean to her?" instead? Only Urobuchi and Co. know?
It is heavily implied that Hitomi was confessing for herself, and Hitomi outright stated that she had had her eye on Kyosuke for a while, and that she was interested in pursuing him. Furthermore, with the faces Sayaka makes as she listens in on their conversation it's kind of hard to doubt.
Which is still not reason or excuse for the fandom's bashing and slutshaming of Hitomi and the canonization of Sayaka. As said above, Hitomi had no idea of WTF was going on, and would've likely thought twice if she at least knew Sayaka had reasons to not confess; if Sayaka didn't take the headstart given to her, it's her own responsibility and not Hitomi's.
Part of the reason the prevalence of the theory that she was confessing on Sayaka's behalf drives me nuts — she doesn't have to give up the guy she likes to her friend in order to be a good person. While it can be a little hard to handle in real life, she at least made some effort to be mature about it, and that's really all that she needed to do.
Double Standard: In the Fan Dumb's eyes, Sayaka having a crush on Kamijou and doing lots of things for his sake is an unforgivable sin.
Made even stronger when they compare her unfavorably to Homura... who can be said to have a crush on Madoka and does everything for her sake. It's horribly offensive to do almost everything for a guy, but centering your whole life around a girl is a-okay!
Some characters in-universe question Sayaka's decision, as Mami wonders if Sayaka is making the wish for Kyosuke's happiness or her own, and Kyoko suggests that the wish might not be the best way to ensure that Kyosuke stays with her, so one could argue that Homura at least had a better idea of how to make her wish have the effect she desired.
If we look at Homura's wish closer, it's not as selfless as it looks either. She wants to save Madoka, she wants to be the one rescuing her, which can be seen as parallel to Sayaka wanting to be the one who healed Kamijou. The point is, is almost impossible to have a truly Selfless Wish, since there will always be an ulterior motive behind it, even if subconsciously. And it's only when Madoka actually comprehends it that she can break the cycle. Therefore Homura and Sayaka's situations aren't that far aside, and Sayaka gets slammed and called "weak" and "slut" because the target of her Wish is a male and she fell in despair more overtly than Homura. Deep down, they're Not so Different.
Even Kyoko's wish fits this pattern if you look at it closer. She wished for her father's preaching to reach more people, but she eventually confessed to him having done so in order to be a Well Done Daughter Girl. It backfires horribly, as she explains to Sayaka. If anything, it explains that she has first hand experience in advising Sayaka that she should wish selfishly.
It's not clear whether she confessed or whether her father found her out.
It's partially explained and to a lesser extent justified (or not at all) by the fact that Sayaka's relationship with Kyosuke wasn't nearly as well developed (on screen) and due to the fact that Kyosuke while intending no malice against Sayaka ignored her completely upon his return to normal life without even offering so much as a "Thank You" for her efforts while Madoka at least actively tries to help Homura in whatever way she can with the limited amount of power she has before becoming a magical girl. Also the fact that Homura is such a Determinator and didn't turn into a Witch over her despair also helps endear her case over Sayaka's.
Draco in Leather Pants: Kyoko is a cynical, antisocial darwinist who is prone to Ax Crazy mements and allows familiars to kill people so they can become Witches that produce Grief Seeds, she mocks Sayaka's wish and goads her into fighting (Although she starts to show a softer side after learning the Awful Truth and then trying to speak to Sayaka)... but the fandom adores her and some use her to bash Madoka. And this was from before her genuinely Dark and Troubled Past was revealed.
Ear Worm: Sis, puella magica is one of the most haunting melodies of the show.
Ensemble Darkhorse: Mami. We've only seen her for three ( actually five, but the fourth was an alternate timeline) episodes ( And then she gets Killed Off for Real) , but due to her sheer sexiness, badassery and really awesome theme, she is well liked by the fans. She even went on to win Saimoe 2011 (a tournament of the most Moe characters of anime in the recent times), directly beating Kyouko and Madoka from this series, and other popular characters like Ika Musume, Shirayuki Hotogi and Mikan Yuuki.
Out of all the witches, Charlotte, who has a respectable amount of fanart despite appearing for all of two minutes. Even though she's an Eldritch Abomination, many fans find her adorable; having a face that wouldn't look out of place next to Hello Kitty helps with that. The biggest reason for her popularity though is likely her status as the Knight of Cerebus - most of the artwork of her is with Mami, albeit usually under a more benign setting.
Also, with the revelation that witches are corrupted magical girls, there's now fanart popping up depicting what Charlotte might have looked like as a human.
Kyubey's face shows up in the strangest of places in Japan - namely arcades and price tags for stuff in specialty stores -, not quite rivaling Tony Tony Chopper's popularity in that respect but getting there. A curious case considering he is the closest thing to the series' main villain
A bear-themed magical girl has managed to catch a lot of attention from fans, despite only showing up for the briefest of seconds in episode 12.
A nameless, faceless classmate was the subject of an image macro, captioned "Poorfag is poor", because she was the only student who had no laptop. When the Blu-Rays were released and the fans got a better look of "Poorfag", her popularity soared.
Patricia, another witch which appeared in episode 10 In an alternate timelineis getting a good fanbase as of recently.
Epileptic Trees: These started sprouting just after the first episode.
Esoteric Happy Ending: the series ends with Madoka being the Abstract Apotheosis for Hope, changing the Magical Girl system for the better and creating a new universe with no Witches and somehow making it convenient for everyone, Incubator and Human alike. Everything seems to be okay, right? Well... not exactly. First, the only thing Madoka changed in the system was that they won't become Witches, which means that they are still subject to have their souls being transformed into an fragile Soul Gem. Second, She didn't change much to everyone's lives. Mami's parents are still dead, Kyouko's family are still killed, and Sayaka still got screwed over in the Love Triangle with Kyousuke. Third, instead of becoming Witches, the Magical Girls simply fade away, being whisked by Madoka and thus leaving behind no body. Lastly, Madoka retconned herself, which was the opposite of what Homura wanted, and thus she failed her goal in saving Madoka. There could hope for Homura as she would be taken by Madoka soon, as both the Anime and Manga prove.
Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Madoka sacrifices herself for the humanity in the final episode that first aired on Good Friday. And the logical conclusion is..?
Family Unfriendly Aesop: When Madoka gets worried about Sayaka's well-being due to the latter's strong sense of justice, Madoka's mother tells her to do something wrong to balance it out. While the qualifier she adds makes it valid advice (that it's easier to recover from mistakes while you're still young, and learning to pick yourself up will be a valuable skill as an adult), this advice might be what possessed Madoka to snatch Sayaka's Soul Jar and throw it off a bridge above a freeway.
In Ep 10, the Sayaka in a previous timeline asks if Homura can use any weapons other than bombs because she thinks she might get caught up in one of the explosions. Later in that timeline, guess how Witch!Sayaka is defeated?
In a more Meta example, Episode 10 featured the image of a destroyed and flooded Japanese city. Shortly after it aired, Japan got hit with a massive earthquake and tsunami.
Kazuko's wackyramblings about her failed relationships. In the first episode she warns the girls about men who judge women by the eggs they can prepare. Incubator turns out to be exactly that kind of guy. In episode 4 she goes off on a tangent about biological eligibility having nothing to do with finding or pursuing love. Unfortunately Sayaka is in no state to listen and only gets worse.
It's also possible that, in light of what happens to Sayaka, her frustration, instead of something to be taken lightly, might actually be a symptom of deep depression.
Genius Bonus: This show is crammed full of it, from the Shout Outs to obscure 19th century literature and musicians, mythological references, Faust quotes, and coded runic fonts. Sometimes you even have to pause and zoom in on a tiny portion of a frame to find some of them.
Physicists will laugh when they realize that Kyubey is Maxwell's Demon.
魔法少女. Mahou Shoujo. Magical Girl, right? Lets examine this. 少女: Shoujo, which means girl. 魔法. Mahou, which means magic, right? Not exactly — it means "Evil Spirit" + Method", typically meaning Magic in General. But if you take it one step further, you get 魔女. Evil Spirit + Woman. Majo. Witch.
Kyubey: "Since this country calls women who are still growing up a shoujo (少女 girl), for girls who on the way of becoming majo (魔女 witch), it's logical to call them a mahou shoujo (魔法少女 magical girl."
It gets even more obvious when you realize the choice of Latin — Magical Girl — was originally believed to be a misuse of the words, due to the translation coming across as more akin to "Sorcerer's Girl". And indeed - they're being used.
The outside of Homura's house is rather reminiscent of a locale in the video game Shadow Of Destiny. Some ome of the possible titles used before they settled on the final one were The Day and Night of Walpurgisnacht, Days of Walpurgis, and Time Adventure. Sounds like a regular Shout Out, no? Well, the game is about a man who travels back in time to prevent his death multiple times, which it turns out is very similar to what Homura is trying to do with Madoka.
The witch Oktavia von Seckendorff who was once Sayaka. Her name comes from Karl Siegmund von Seckendorff, who composed for "Der König in Thule", the poem that prefaces Goethe's Faust, as well as wrote a book called "Das Rad des Schicksals" (The Wheel of Fate). Oktavia fights by throwing wheels, and the word "Schicksal" appears in her labyrinth. Also, the Wheel of Fate (or Fortune) is a tarot card which symbolizes "possibilities, opportunities, new developments, sudden changes"; a rather apt description of Sayaka's life after meeting Kyubey.
Growing the Beard: If the first two episodes didn't already show a stubble to some fans indicating this isn't the usual Magical Girl series, then Episode 3 should've done it.
Harsher in Hindsight: In hindsight, it's pretty unfortunate that Mami just so happened to wear her Soul Gem as a hair dec, since she loses it along with her head.
Het is Ew: The amount of fans who simply cannot accept Sayaka devoting herself to a male love interest is staggering.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Before the last two episodes were aired in Japan, one fan decided to make a trailer for a Madoka Magica movie in the style of an actual film trailer (Watch it here). Months later, well...
There is a doujin involving Mami being saved from her gruesome death by Guts (it's in the Fan Fic Recommendations page). Cue the English dub cast, it's announced that Mami will be voiced by Casca's voice actress.
April 21, 2011: Episode 11 airs. Homura, having previously stolen a few truckloads of Type 88 antiship missiles from the JGSDF, fires them off at Walpurgisnacht.
April 21, 2011: In Real Life, the JGSDF's 6th Surface-to-Ship Missile Regiment, which uses Type 88 missiles, is disbanded.
Holy Shit Quotient: Almost every episode will leave you off with an unstable mind trying to comprehend what just happened.
Honor Before Reason: Sayaka refuses help from any magical girl who does not meet her ideal of justice. She gives Kyoko a grief seed from a witch just because Kyoko briefly helped her in the fight. She also refuses a grief seed from Homura, knowing that her soul gem was too tainted for her to go on that way.
Episode 8: Homura is a time traveler and uses time-based powers; witches are fallen Magical Girls, and Grief Seeds are their former soul gems. That said, Sayaka becomes a witch.
Episode 9: Homura's powers manipulate time, and she is not from the present timeline.
Episode 10: The presence of time loops confirmed, along with the Prologue of Episode 1 being the endgame of the previous iteration.
Episode 12: Madoka's wish was to change the Magical Girl system.
Also, from the very beginning of the series there was speculation that Kyubey is evil. Whether you can say that or not is left to the watcher's interpretation.
Jerkass Woobie: Kyoko. Her father founded a new church, but no one was really interested, so she used her wish to brainwash the crowd into believing in her father's religion. After he found out about this, he became crazyand killed the whole family. Probably the only reason Kyoko survived was because she was Lich by that time. Yep, she had to live through a LOT of shit in her life... but it still doesn't justify how much of an ass she was at the beginning. And neither does it excuse how she's used to bash Madoka.
Every character has at least one possible lesbian pairing. It's a mahou shoujo anime with an all female cast. What did you think was going to happen?
Hitomi: Is this... FORBIDDEN LOVE?!
The big couples are Homura and Madoka (the former is curiously obsessed with the latter) and Kyoko and Sayaka (the former suddenly takes a big interest in the latter after they have a heart-to-heart, and they both die right after a Revolutionary Girl Utena reference of all things).
Sayaka's witch form is a mermaid, Kyoko's magical weapon is a harpoon spear, make of that what you might. Also, in the episode Kyoko took Sayaka down with her, the episode-end guest-image is a Cat Girl Kyoko.
Love to Hate: Kyubey. Most of the fans would love to see him die horribly, yet he's also a Fountain of Memes and the source of much humor and entertainment in the fandom.
Magnificent Bastard: Kyubey's line in episode 9 cemented him as one in many fans' eyes.
Kyubey:If you feel like dying for this universe, just call us. We'll be waiting!
Note that the above fanwank doesn't make any sense since Kyubei doesn't really care about any of the girls and just sees them as cattle to harvest emotional energy from. Death doesn't matter to him since he's got plenty of backup bodies. He even states at the end of the series that killing witches would be more efficient then the current way of getting energy. In one timeline Madoka ends the world and Kyubei is unfazed by it.
Also, to a lesser extent, Junko Kaname is a bit of a MemeticBadass Normal. She's among the few characters (from all media) the fandom assumes can take on Homura on even footing.
Many of the witches also get this treatment in fanart. Which may be justified, considering they started out as Puella Magi prior to reaching the Despair Event Horizon and becoming witches.
Moral Event Horizon: The fandom is divided on when he becomes an Acceptable Target of much fan hatred (the infamous 'Everybody hates Kyubey' pool in Danbooru (NSFW) standing as eternal proof of this), but the most commonly believed Moral Event Horizon crossings are either when he mislead Kyoko into believing that Sayaka could be saved after turning into a witch, leading to her Heroic Sacrifice and leaving Homura as the only Puella Magi to fight Walpurgisnacht - all in hopes that Madoka would contract with him, or his casually delivered line asking Madoka to give his kind a call when she'd be ready to die for the universe.
Kyouko's father killing his entire family after finding out that his older daughter's wish was the only reason for his popularity. Kyouko survived but ended up bitter and amoral.
Narm: Considering that Kyubey's "charm" is his Perpetual Smiler traits, his "Nightmare Face"◊ from the manga (which he pulls when Homura calls him "Incubator"could come off as more ridiculously overblown than truly scary. Even more since, ever since then, he's drawn with stupidly AnviliciousBlack Eyesof Evil, as if the viewers were idiots who needed to constantly be reminded of how eeeeeeeevil he's supposed to come as. A little subtlety, people, PLEASE.
Mami's cute little hops with bended knees and pigeon toes before her Transformation Sequence were... well, pretty out of place.
Oh, definitely YMMV. I actually loved her constant, unstopping laugh.
Although it may have been ruined before that. Homura's ready for the final showdown as a dramatic thunderstorm looms, and... giant green elephant. Wha? And the initial use of Conspicuous CG.
Charlotte's One-Winged Angel is a large worm that appears to be made out of candy and looks as though it has the face of a clown. It's something of the equivalent of Lelouch's pink sword in dramatic effect, especially after it devoursMami.
The signature head-tilt can turn a serious and dramatic moment somewhat narmy given how unnatural it looks.
Nausea Fuel: A regenerated Kyubey eating the corpse of his body which Homura had just killed. Oh my GOD... eeeeeew.
That is, unless you think that it's actually another member of the Kyubey race. Eating his own to replace him and absorb his knowledge. Insert more 'eeeeeeew'.
And the manga version of Mami's death is far worse and more graphic.
Never Live It Down: If all the fanart and even official merchandise showing them together is any indication, Charlotte will be remembered for one thing and one thing only - killing Mami, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Mami will be remembered only for being killed by Charlotte.
Paranoia Fuel: Witches are everywhere and they are responsible for suicides. Whats worse, they are completely invisible to normal humans until you wander into their lair, wherein you will be killed in a most horrific way. That friend of yours online that just killed herself? Could have been because of a witch. Wanna take that shortcut through the alleyway? Could walk in right into a witches lair. You are never safe.
Possession Sue: Sayaka is not a Mary Sue in canon, but a pretty loud part of the fandom loves to overproject on her. Sometimes to extremely uncomfortable degrees: in their view Sayaka is a pure little girl who never commits mistakes, never should be responsible for the missteps she takes, deserves Kamijou's penis handed to her on a platter because she healed him, is soooooo like the poor woobie that her "fans" are in Real Life and thus Kamijou is her property and Hitomi is a whore who must die for daring not to give up on her feelings for him since that's soooooo like what happened to them in real life...
Sailor Earth: Very common in fanfic; easiest is creating new magical girls; but also Kyubey variants with personalities named "Prefix"-bey are often villains or characters since Kyubey's personality is really tricky to do correctly.
The Scrappy: Danbooru has an entire pool (WARNING: MANY IMAGES ARE NSFW) dedicated to fanart of people maiming, killing, and otherwise beating on Kyubey. At last count the pool had 250+ images and climbing.
Though most of the hate doesn't actually come from the fact that he's annoying, but because of his morally questionable (if well-intentioned) decisions, which result in him having a large share of the responsibility for the characters' suffering.
Madoka, for being wangsty and not accomplishing much for most of the series despite being the main character.
Hitomi gets a lot of flak from the fanbase due to the fact that her hooking up with Kyosuke caused so much trouble with Sayaka, or simply they think Sayaka would be better with him.
The fact that the fans has go deep and wide to discover every single symbolism in the show; from the Witches' back-stories, meaning of their name and its connection to said back-stories, astronomy connection of said names, philosophical and psychoanalysis of the characters, foreshadowings, deciphering the runes, thermodynamic, Homura's time travel mechanic, Mitakihara's architectures and their comparison to the real-life buildings, canon's evidences of those yuri undertones...
So Cool It's Awesome: This series is one of the, if not THE, most acclaimed show in 2011 and everyone and their grandparents are talking about it. The series' thread on this site holds a record for the fastest growing Anime thread. Yeah, it qualifies.
Start of Darkness: Arguably, the whole series is about Sayaka'sStart of Darkness. Yomi would have been proud crying blood. The only caveat is 3 episodes before the series ended, Sayaka the witch dies, and there's still a lot left to be done.
Strawman Has a Point: As cruel as Kyoko's Social Darwinist outlook may seemed, her belief that helping others would only lead to trouble looked to be somewhat accurate in light of the series'universe. Both Kyouko and Sayaka's contracts came back to bite them horribly, Madoka's attempt to cheer Mami up by promising to fight alongside her wound up distracting the latter in a fight causing her death and finally the whole dark series began from Homura making a wish to prevent Madoka's death resulting in a progressively worse Ground Hog Day Loop.
Wangst/What Measure Is a Non-Badass?: Madoka is condemned for being emotionally crushed by all that happens to her and not react with violence or bitchiness, as well as hesitating in becoming a Magical Girl after her big sister mentor Mami dies horribly and realizing that being a Magical Girl involves a Deal with the Devil. The fanbase simply ignores the part on how Homura told Madoka that if she becomes a magical girl she will lose everything, and Madoka's doubt comes in part from being drawn into a lifetime of servitude just for a single wish. Oh, and her emotional breakdown reaches its peak in Episode 6 when she loses it and tries to stop Sayaka from fighting Kyoko by throwing away her Soul Gem, not knowing the effects of said action. Thus, Madoka had to endure some time being called "emo", "selfish", "bitch", "lazy", "whiny", "slut" until she redeemed herself to a part of the fanbase by openly dying for your sins.
Made worse when we see that if she does become a Magical Girl, Madoka is very similar to still living!Mami: a reliable, cheerful, and ultimately self-sacrificial Magical Girl Warrior with inner struggles, therefore this means that she MUST take up the contract or people will keep calling her "stupid weakling" for not living up to their "standards" of what a "strong female character" must be... while obviously missing the huge downside of her being WAY more likely to become the most powerful Witch ever.
And in some circles, very bad things have been said about Sayaka and Mami after the first's Freak Out and transformation into a Witch and the second going mad after learning theAwful Truth in the third timeline.
Which is even sillier since Sayaka has every reason to care so much about Kyosuke, as they've known each other since they were kids. Homura on the other hand threw her life away every bit as unknowingly as Sayaka, but for the sake of a girl she met a month ago. On the other hand, an argument can be made for Madoka being more willing to return Homura's affections than Kyosuke is for Sayaka
Don't forget how some people hold up Homura and Kyouko as some sort-of "strong women rolemodels" that the other girls should imitate, lest they're "stupid and useless."
A part of Hitomi's hatedom also comes back to this trope, since she's a girly-girl who "dares" not back off in her own word and does not pull an I Want My Beloved to Be Happy when the tomboyish Sayaka doesn't confess to Kamijou. Being a Yamato Nadeshiko who doesn't bow to a Tomboy is an horrible, terrible sin!
Young teenage girls in that show are shown as psychotic time bombs waiting to explode, and are blamed for exploding, even though the things they go evil about (love problems, family problems, money, grades, magical powers having side-effects they didn’t ask for,) are not female-exclusive issues or even teenager-exclusive issues IRL or in other shows, for obvious reasons.
Chew on that and remember the old magical girl genre conundrum... why are there no magical boys? Surely not only females are so ruled by their emotions that only they can possess such unstable powers? Just sayin'.
Sayaka is also a huge woobie, not only due to her heartbreaking breakdown, but also because Word Of God has declared that she can't be saved in any timeline. Poor girl.
Kyouko's backstory implies she's a bit of an Iron Woobie herself. It's damn impressive she didn't immediately turn into a witch after her family died.
