Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Well Homura did basically make Sayaka and Nagisa mortal by trapping them outside of Madoka's world. After all Nagisa pretty much said they could have died when trying to save Madoka.

Also Madoka was never trapped. She only went inside to save Homura and even planned ahead on how to do it without being caught for real. She didn't even need to go herself. She went over herself to distract Kyubey from Nagisa and Sayaka who were meant to actually handle things. She can just sent as many magical girls/witches as she wants.

Homura could trap 1: Madoka because Madoka didn't see it coming 2:Madoka always takes magical girls away and Homura had already become a witch and 3: Homura afterwards became something that had never existed before then.

I think you are seriously overestimating Madoka's powers. After all, if everything you said was true then what Homura did wouldn't have worked either. Also, if she could completely remove the knowledge of Witches from peoples minds then why didn't she? That would have been the much faster and easier solution, after all, that would have avoided the mental torture her very best friend went through. The only person who seems to have the power to manipulate memories is Akuma Homura. Lastly, if her omniscience was truly unblockable then she would have seen Homura's move coming which she clearly didn't.

The only powers that Ultimate Madoka has demonstrated are the ability to erase Witches before they're ever even created, the ability to take magical girls to Valhalla, and some vague form of near omniscience.

You keep bringing that point up but that's not necessarily evil. After all, Homura's universe allowed both to live lives far better than the original universe or Madoka's universe (since Homura could do something that Madoka said was impossible). The same goes for Mami, Kyouko, and even Madoka to a degree (Homura sent to her and her family to America for a few years because English was her worst subject).

edited 30th May '15 9:38:11 AM by Zelenal

Well the I see it, the Kyubeys did come up with a way to block her omniscience, but Madoka already countered it with the Memory Gambit and bringing in Sayaka and Nagisa.

Now, if things had gone differently, they might have come up with more ways (the first trial was pretty successful all things considered since it did trap her, she just had a counter to it), so they could use what they learned to try something else. Now the real factor is how omniscient Madoka is, and if she could continually counter their attempts. Hell, they could use the machine that blocks her omniscience to hide away and make a new plan.

That being said, Homura's success came not just from the machine still being in affect, but also because......Madoka's never really understood Homura at all. She needed to become a Goddess to finally get inside the latter's head, and the moment she was blocked from that, she was totally blindsided.

Kyubey choosing Homura as the bait worked a little too well.

That comes entirely from things she actively demonstrated, things she and Kyuubey claimed and the wording of her wish. One of the reasons I loved the ending so much was how well all that worked out from the wording of her wish.

It didn't. She just thinks it did as part of Madoka's plan.

Because Homura explicitly wanted to know.

Which not only demonstrates that it's a "thing", it completely fits with Madoka's explanation of her own abilities.

Yes, she did. Memory Gambit, remember?

This is not true. Madoka was explicitly retgone as she needed to have always existed and you can't come into existence if you already exist. Madoka actively demonstrated Time Travel and infinite speed in order to collect every witch. She explicitly interacted with her future self where she killed and absorbed her future, witch!self. She explicitly tells Homura that she is everywhere, in every Universe and in "impossible Universes" (and therefore has the ability to operator in fiction and minds). the wording of her wish lets her erase "every witch" and if she exists in impossible Universes like people's imaginations, she would therefore be able to erase the witches in there too. Kyuubey explicitly says that Madoka is powerful enough to create and destroy Universes, before being corrected by Madoka herself that no, that's a vast underestimate of her powers. Madoka explicitly appears in multiple places simultaneously and claims to be "everywhere, with everyone". The paradox of destroying her future self and therefore becoming stronger than her future self an infinite number of times rendered her timeless and with infinite power. Kyuubey explicitly states that a magical girl's power is equal to the despair they are destined to feel and Madoka experienced an infinite amount of despair from witching out and absorbing the despair of herself an infinite number of times (never mind that of every magical girl that will ever and won't ever exist). He also says that it's determined by her influence and she's an omniversal concept, therefore, at maximum influence. She explicitly tells Sayaka that it was within her power to alter reality so that Sayaka never made her wish, but chose not to do so.

EDIT: Madoka was explicitly not trapped in Rebellion. She explicitly sent in a piece of herself while the rest continued her own thing. When the barrier fell down, anther piece went down and Homura only tore off that piece and nothing else, which was confirmed by Homura herself.

EDIT: Also, when you are as powerful as Madoka, "easier" and "faster" are completely irrelevant.

edited 30th May '15 10:11:29 AM by Sereg

Witch-Homura can manipulate memories because her original self was a time traveler, who indirectly caused people to forget things and manipulated (recent) history. I don't think there's any reason to believe Madoka can do that; she wasn't even able to resist Homura's mind-wiping powers. That's why she didn't send her "whole self" into the labyrinth.

When does this happen?

If Madoka is truly God-Woman at this point then that makes Rebellion all kinds of pointless. I don't think she is, though. Why would a totally omnipotent and all-knowing character allow themselves to be manipulated at all, or even pretend to be manipulated? There would be no point. She could have just waltzed in there and dragged Homura to Valhalla and the whole movie would be over in 10 seconds.

Having to resort to circuitous tricks and then getting one-upped by an unexpected twist implies she is neither all-powerful nor all-knowing. She didn't wish to be God, she wished to erase all witches, so she became a sort of demigod who can do that and anything else that goes along with it, but not absolutely anything. For example, I don't think she's really omnipresent on the level of "if god is everywhere, is he in the toilet." Instead, she follows each magical girl around until it's time to absorb their soul gem. That particular fragment of her can't see its own future, which is why she didn't see Homura's betrayal coming. Whether there's some larger plan going on there... we'll have to wait and see, I guess.

edited 30th May '15 10:32:54 AM by Kotomikun

Yes, there is. Madoka's wish allows her to retroactively erase every witch. She says that she exists in every Universe, in every possible Universe and even in impossible Universes, which indicates that she exists in imagined Universes and can therefore retroactively erase witches from people's imaginations.

She didn't send her whole self into the barrier because her whole self is infinitely larger than the barrier and she had other girls to look after at the same time.

While Kyuubey and Homura are looking at Madoka's giant grief seed before it turns into a witch larger than the moon's orbit.

It's not pointless. Madoka isn't the protagonist. She's an antagonist.

A: She's not omnipotent. She has infinite power. That is not the same thing as being all-powerful. She is limited by certain things, like her own wish.

B: She's doing it for the benefit of those she loves.

Which would have completely failed to deal with Homura's issues (which is what the movie's about) and Madoka knows this. Madoka explicitly doesn't want to save her friends the easy way, but the right way and to respect their wishes. She told Sayaka as much when she told Sayaka that she had the power to alter reality to prevent Sayaka from making a wish.

She's not all powerful. And was not one-upped. Memory Gambit, remember?

I never claimed otherwise. Everything I said she can do comes from that wish. Imagine a witch? That's a witch. She wished to erase all witches. Your imaginary witch is one of "all the witches" and she can erase it, because that is what she wished.

Madoka claims to be everywhere, with everyone, all the time. I believe her.She's hope, remember? As long as there's a place where there is enough hope for someone not to be a witch, she's there.

As was Madoka's plan. Madoka normally can see her own future as she can see, fight, destroy and absorb her future self.

EDIT: Kyuubey even said to Madoka upon hearing the wish, "Do you truly wish to become God!?"

Madoka responded, "I don't care what I become" ie. "If that's what it takes"

edited 30th May '15 10:59:51 AM by Sereg

I don't really how the minor improvement to Sayaka's, Mami's and Kyouko's lives makes up for the fact that Sayaka was immortal as long as she stayed in Madoka's world. Going to an "afterlife" is not the same as true death.

I can't see how to interpret that as saying she's "powerful enough to create and destroy Universes," let alone even more powerful than that. Let's see what they actually said...

• Kyubey: She was able to bring forth enough hope to give birth to an entire universe. Which is to say, it will also become enough despair to end the entire universe as well. It's only natural, right?
• Madoka: No, it's all right. My wish was to erase all witches. And if that prayer really comes true, then even I should have no reason to despair... ever!

Kyubey is saying that, because she spent an eternity creating a universe-sized amount of hope, an equally large amount of despair should appear and destroy all that she created. But she defies that because she has no regrets, and no reason to despair; and besides, her despair is just another witch, so she can erase it. But she creates hope in a specific way, by saving magical girls, and there's no indication that she literally creates entire universes out of nothing; it's more like she takes sucky universes and hope-ifies them into new, better universes. She becomes their driving force of goodness. Nothing in her wish said anything about being able to make new universes so she can save people from witches in them.

I don't think they ever said anything about her visiting "impossible universes," whatever that means, or beating up imaginary witches like they're Weeping Angels or something... there was probably something about universes that don't exist yet, presumably she gets to clean the despair out of those when/if they come into being.

"Omnipotent" literally means "almighty or infinite in power" so, yes, they are the same thing. I'm not sure what you're getting at there. Someone who is either of those things doesn't have limitations in what they can do, because then they would merely have finite power.

If there was some sort of Memory Gambit other than the one we already saw, before Akuma Homura happened, it doesn't seem like it worked out too well. Unless Homura taking over the universe was the plan?

edited 30th May '15 4:48:31 PM by Kotomikun

I'd like to point out that Madoka did not become a god. At least, not in the sense that everyone seems to take. I suppose she's equivalent to the gods of Classical Mythology or just about any given polytheistic religion, I suppose, but people seem to take it as her becoming like the Judeo-Christian God. Just like with Homura, the religious symbolism is largely a red herring that oversimplifies things. Madoka became hope personified (in fact, that trope used to be called "Becoming Hope"). He wish changed what is essentially a fundamental law of the universe (not quite but the comparison is close enough for this) which led to the universe being restructured to accommodate her new rules. She is directly responsible for creating it but she did not directly create it. Also note that Homura did the exact same thing (either that or she put the entire universe in her labyrinth. Hard to say).

ie. "With her power (emotions are magical power in this show. This is is well established) she was able to give birth to (ie. create) Universe (and is therefore powerful enough to do so) (Madoka lately clarifies more than one Universe)

ie. She can and will end the Universe and is therefore powerful enough to do so.

ie. "No. I overwrite the fact that I'm forced to do that with the power of my determination (ie. emotions. ie. power) and my wish" ie. "No. I'm too powerful to be forced to do that"

No. He's talking about Madoka's witch (they make this clear as they're discussing her grief seed and to drive the point home, her witch immediately appears to confirm that this is the thing he was talking about). As she rewrote reality, creating a new Universe (well, more than one as Madoka clarifies), her witch will be equivalent and be powerful enough to destroy it. There is no mystical force equating hope to despair in this show. The show makes it clear that that's an incorrect guess by Kyouko (and that reality is much worse).

Exactly. All her power comes from the wording of her wish.

She retroactively rewrites the laws of the universe, warping reality on a Universal scale from the dawn of time and actively chooses the events that happen within them. She confirms this twice. That is effectively the same thing.

Yet she confirms that she exists in impossible Universes. Meaning that she can interact with them as though they were real.

Yes, she did. She told Homura that.

She confirms that she exists both in Universes that may come into existence (and already exists there, before they come into existence, and exists there even if they don't come into existence) and Universes that are "impossible to come into existence". She lists them separately, so you cannot confuse the two and to confirm that she exists in all those variations.

It means almighty and infinite in power and having the ability to do anything. She only qualifies for the middle, which is not enough.

She has an infinite amount of power, but is limited in how and where she can apply it. That's the difference. Maybe a better way would be to say that she has infinite brute force, but not infinite finesse.

Yes. Homura taking over was part of the plan. The plan is unfinished.

I never denied any of this. It's all true (though Madoka has abilities far beyond those typically assigned to members of pantheons), but she's still below the Judaeo-Christian God (in my own setting, she would be comparable to the ophinum in power, which are usually considered only the third most powerful type of angel and in my own setting, they are the fourth).

EDIT: I should also point out that dictionary definitions are usually over-simplified to the point where they can be technically incorrect.

EDIT: I should also point out that one of Madoka's limitations is the fact that Homura wished to protect her, so not even Madoka can stop her from protecting her. Her wish also links her to Madoka's power, making it inevitable that she would reach similar heights of power and not even Madoka could stop that. So, it only makes sense that Madoka would deal with Homura in a complicated fashion.

edited 31st May '15 6:52:13 AM by Sereg

That might be a good point actually. I mean, I'm not sure if the nature of Homura's wish means that no matter what, she'll always protect Madoka, whether the latter wants or needs it, but considering everything Homura has gone through, it wouldn't surprise me if she's no longer able to not protect Madoka. She likely doesn't even realize it.

I've always said Homura was single minded. She's got a serious Madoka shaped case of tunnel vision.

In one of the final episodes, the same imagery that was used to show why Madoka had so much potential (her being tied up in strings) was also used for Homura so her potential being just as great is only natural.

If you're going to start ignoring dictionary definitions in order to win your argument then I'm taking the emergency exit out of this argument.

The purpose of ignoring dictionary definitions is not in order to win an argument. The highest authority on the meaning of a word is not the dictionaries, but the greatest experts in that field. Look at the structure of omnipotent. Potent is powerful, but omni doesn't mean "infinitely". It means "all". They are not the same thing. Most dictionary definitions are far too short to be perfectly accurate and that's okay, because defining words is not the purpose of dictionaries. "Looking up spelling" is. Specialised articles are better for definitions.

A cross-over fanfic work compared ascended Madoka to The Endless, with her being the equal and opposite of Despair as Hope. It makes sense.

In any event, the definition of "omnipotent" is not actually important to the discussion, so I will concede that she fits your definition of omnipotent while asserting that she doesn't fit my own (I used to believe that she did, until it was pointed out to me in this very thread that she didn't). Now that we've dealt with that, can we move on from the "omnipotent" stuff? Neither argument actually benefits from either person agreeing with the other's definition of omnipotent. Only the concept is important.

Basically, here's the deal:

I believe that if Madoka doesn't have the abilities I mentioned, the show has contradicted itself. This is actually made me concerned about Rebellion at first, though I enjoyed watching it and realised that it made sense if Madoka is in the process of a Memory Gambit at the end of the film.

EDIT: And as I consider wishes the highest authority in the setting, I do believe that Homura is physically incapable of stopping protecting Madoka.

edited 31st May '15 9:23:07 AM by Sereg

Definition do not matter. I don't believe Kyubey could have ever gain control over her given the amount of power and effort Homura is having to use made Kyubey decide the whole magical girl business was a bad idea.

I think I know the one you're talking about. Despair and Delirium got Madohugs. It was adorable.

Ugh. I knew I should have gone with the rule of thumb that once you have to start quoting the dictionary, the argument has completely jumped the shark.

It sounds like you're trying to argue that something that hasn't happened yet is definitely going to happen, and you haven't been very clear about what that hypothetical event is. There's really nothing to discuss there; it's a topic for fanfiction.

Well, I don't know exactly what will happen. But I know that the Law of Cycles, or at least, an equivalent that Madoka will be happy with, will return and that Madoka and Homura will have a proper reconciliation whereby Homura will have to come to terms with what Madoka has done. I say that this is definitely going to happen, because I don't believe that Madoka would have allowed the events of Rebellion to happen otherwise, as I believe that it was completely within her power to prevent them from happening. Because I believe that it would be a contradiction with the show if it was not in her power to prevent it from happening.

Homura's Rebellion is on netflix. Both the dub/sub are up. They also put up the other Madoka movies.

This is good because I wanted to see the dub for a while.

My thing is clear to me this show is way too deep.

To the above, I've always interpretted Madoka's omniscience as that she only knows everything currently happening, not everything that is going to happen. Since it's supposed to be based off her ability to be everywhere.

Except that she's shown to be completely capable of time travel as well. As well as interacting with her past and future self.

Like GOD I might say.

Is Madoka is willing to prevent Homura but is not able? Then she is not omnipotent.

Is she able, but not willing? Then she is not benevolent.

Is she both able and willing? Then whence cometh Homura?

Is she neither able nor willing? Then why call her a god?