Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Yeah. Homura's opponent was the universe itself, and the house just kept on winning, no matter how she threw her dice.

Not enough time, no way to deal with the issues that everyone else had, therefore causing them to self destruct well before they could be of any use, and Walpurgisnacht just ignoring anything she tried, even when that resulted in her tossing a fucking Battleship at it.

Only Madoka could win that fight, and that's how it was always gonna be.

So here are two thoughts that just hit me after writing that paragraph:

1) Homura can't actually change the future.

Certain things keep happening (Mami dying, Walpurgisnacht coming, etc etc). No matter how much Homura derails the actually timeline with her knowledge she can't actually change how the story ends because that's how it ended in her original timeline. She wanted to go back and redo her meeting with Madoka, but she didn't say shit about how she wanted that meeting to end.

That's why no matter what she does, she can't beat Walpurgisnacht, or keep anyone else alive long enough to help her do it. Because in the first timeline, Madoka was the only one able to stop it. Add in Madoka getting stronger with each iteration, and it adds to things getting worse each time. It doesn't matter how fast she does it, or whether she dies doing it, or becomes a witch, Madoka must be the won to win that fight, cause the universe won't let it be any other way.

This is also counts for a world like Oriko, but it's inverted. Madoka dies and Walpurgisnacht comes instead of the other way around.

2) If Homura had made her wish a little sooner, and joined Madoka and Mami in that fight in the first timeline, would her presence have made a difference? I know it didn't in timeline two, but Walpurgisnacht wasn't that powerful then, and maybe in that timeline, something different might have happened to prevent either Madoka or Mami's death, or at least the latter.

They still be fucked due to Witch-nanigans mind you, but at least it might have prevented the whole time fuckery deal.

edited 13th Oct '15 12:40:04 PM by HandsomeRob

It's not that she can't change the future; she changes it in each revolution. In addition to Madoka becoming steadily more and more powerful every time Homura goes back, there's also the matter of Sayaka who only became a Magical Girl in later revolutions; she doesn't always contract.

The problem is that Walpurgisnacht is plainly insurmountable. It's the Frieza of the franchise. No matter what she does, no matter how she attempts it, no matter which angles she comes from, Walpurgisnacht always wins because Walpurgisnacht is just too goddamn powerful. She can't stop Madoka from contracting unless she can beat Walpurgisnacht without Madoka and she can't beat Walpurgisnacht without Madoka because even the combined efforts of herself, Mami, Sayaka, and Kyoko would only have a slim chance of success against the overwhelming force it brings to bear.

She's Save Scumming an unwinnable scenario. No matter how many repetitions she makes, she keeps failing because Walpurgisnacht is impossibly powerful and the resources she has at her disposal could only be enough if an exactly perfect sequence of events transpired - one that she's never going to find because she's already given up hope of finding it and is just sifting through the other possibilities until she finds an ending where her waifu doesn't bite it.

History being immutable isn't the flaw in her plan. Walpurgisnacht being nigh unbeatable is, and her decision to give up on the only people who could possibly provide her the ability to win isn't helping. It is possible to accomplish Homura's nearly impossible objective, as one of the video games demonstrates, but there's a malfunctioning piece in her toolset that will ensure she never finds that route and that piece is Homura herself.

edited 13th Oct '15 12:55:16 PM by TobiasDrake

.......

I like that.

So Homura is just a fuck up then?

Makes sense. She started all of this when you think about it.

She did. She is literally a Self-Insert Fanfic. Like Kyoko and Sayaka, she wasted a potentially earth-shattering wish to kickstart a scenario she assumed would bring about the outcome she wanted rather than just wishing for the outcome directly. She wanted Madoka to come back safe and sound but rather than wishing to revive her, she wished to go back in time. She inserted herself in the events that had just transpired on the hopes and dreams that her presence would fix everything.

In her idealism, she cast herself as the valiant hero who would champion Madoka and protect her against all evil. Then, like Kyoko and Sayaka, she got to experience the bitter taste of failure when Reality Ensued and her contribution to the fight against Walpurgisnacht didn't amount to nearly as much as she told herself it would.

edited 13th Oct '15 1:13:06 PM by TobiasDrake

.....

Can a wish bring someone back to life? I could have sworn that one was a no.

To my knowledge, it's never been addressed.

Maybe in the supplemental materials, but the core series never weighs in on it even though it has a perfect opportunity to; I kept waiting for Madoka and Kyubey to discuss the possibility of resurrecting Mami with Madoka's wish.

Theoretically, there's no reason a wish shouldn't be able to revive someone, un-Magical Girl someone, etc.

edited 13th Oct '15 1:25:56 PM by TobiasDrake

Actually, I believe that in The Different Story Madoka actually successfully brings Sayaka back to life with her wish, although I think that it was implied that she could only do so because of the massive amounts of karma she had built up by then.

Yup Madoka did bring Sayaka back to life, with some of her memories erased. Sayaka still became a magical girl again after being resurrected for reasons unknown to us that time, so she's going to die twice probably.

edited 13th Oct '15 2:26:39 PM by Hoki

Kyubey should just get two girls to wish for the other one to not be a Magical Girl anymore. Boom, infinite loop of Wish energy.

I actually put a bit of thought on the Back from the Dead trope and how it could be brutally deconstructed since PMMM already does that to other stuff {Mainly Magical Girl tropes though}. Basically, it would involve Kyoske and his entire family getting horrifically killed by some kind of monster {Say for example a Wraith or a Demon of some sorts}, and Hitomi making a contract with Kyueby to bring Kyoske back {Sayaka would probably be dead at this point as per the show's ending and it's after his crippling injuries had been healed, so it wouldn't be her}. Except, Kyoske is horribly tramatized by the whole ordeal and also deppressed by how his family is dead. He has massive PTSD and {{Survivor's Guilt}}, as Hitomi had forgotten to wish his family back as well. He then eventually commits suicide, rendering Hitomi's wish completly pointless and more or less throwing away her life.

Of course there are other ways to deconstruct that trope, but I'm now wondering if something similar to what I thought up of has happend in any of the spin off manga's, even if it's with two completly different characters.

Well, almost insurmountable. Madoka can beat Walpurgis. In fact, Madoka always beats Walpurgis, from the first timeline to the last, and she always dies or witches out or otherwise self-sacrifices in the process.

"The stage-constructing witch (alias: Walpurgisnacht / real name: unknown); her nature is helplessness. She symbolizes the fool who continuously spins in circles... She will continue to rotate aimlessly throughout the world until she completely changes the whole of this age into a drama."

"Fool who continuously spins in circles" sounds like Homura, who apparently can't beat it because she's doing exactly what it wants: repeating the story over and over, creating more drama. (Probably no coincidence that their designs are similar, lots of circles and gears.) But Madoka wants to end the story, or at least her own story, so she constantly tries to sacrifice herself to stop everyone else's suffering and let things move forward. (Straight forward, like an arrow?)

Needless to say, those aren't compatible goals... so then we have Rebellion, where Homura tries to have her cake and eat it too. Move forward by going back one last time and making everything perfect. It works, but she has to betray the ultimate force of goodness and satisfyingly bittersweet endings to do it, which makes everyone hate her, so she has to make everyone forget her. But she's always assumed lonely pariahdom was her natural state anyway, with the self-loathing and all, so it was probably all part of the plan.

Madoka is not confirmed to have beaten Walpurgisnight in the first timeline. In the first one, we see Maoka flying up to fight her, then we see her dead. For all we know, Walpurgisnight oneshotted her without Madoka even scratching her. Even if she did, she likely detonated her gem to do so, considering the fact that she died instantly afterwards, which is difficult to achieve otherwise. And every time Madoka defeated Walpurgisnight, she instantly witched out from the effort.

Also, the contract is a big source of energy, but the real source the Incubators are after is the grief seeds as they're perpetual.

I think that it's implied that Madoka was able to kill Walgreens Night, but through a suicide attack.

Madoka is basically minmaxed in order to kill Walmart, although it was only in the later timelines where she had enough power to kill it without dying (instead instantly becoming Kreimhild Gretchen).

It just hit me.

Are they even doing something that takes place after Rebellion?

Like a movie, manga, OVA, anything at all?

I think there are plans to continue the series post rebellion. What those plans are however, are up in the air.

So here's a new thought:

If Madoka keeps growing stronger with every timeline, and can defeat Walpurgisnacht more easily each time, is it possible that if things had kept going, she'd have eventually been strong enough to do so without having to expend so much energy that she became a Witch?

I mean, we know Walmart Knight is powerful, but there's no indication that it got more powerful each time either. Just Madoka, and considering in Homura's fourth known trip, before the events of the series, Madoka took it out in one shot, it stands to reason that she's gain more power every time, until it stopped taking effort, and started being as easy as breathing.

And what would have happened if that became the case? There's nothing stronger than Wally Puttnam Nite (barring Gretchen that is) so what would happen to Madoka then?

Of course, I'm probably totally wrong about everything, but still.

There hasn't been anything announced. Despite wanting to make a more stuff about the series, they sure arn't in a rush. An announcement would be appreciated at least. Come on, at this rate I feel like they won't even make a 4th movie or 2nd TV series. You just can't end it with Rebellion. The ending of the overall series doesn't have to be happy, but it has to at least feel like an ending and not a hook for a sequel that'll never come.

I think it's because SHAFT is focused on finishing the Monogatari series first. Once that's done, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Madoka announcement.

No, because it's because Wally requires so much magic to defeat that Madoka becomes a witch. She never becomes able to "hold" more magic, only to "spend" more and more at once; it would be like trying to cast a spell that cost 9999 MP when you only have 999. And only Madoka has the capability to cast such a powerful spell.

edited 14th Oct '15 12:10:43 PM by MoreThanBored

@Handsome Rob: I think that Madoka could have theoretically done that after only a few loops. Practically, she can't though. Because, all of her worldview (based on Homura's reaction to it and how it utterly destroys everything she knows effortlessly) tells her that Walpurgisnacht is something utterly beyond anything she can imagine, so she instinctively always uses everything she has, no mater how strong she is. The only way she could prevent herself from witching out from that battle would be to acknowledge how puny Wally is compared to her. And getting her to think that way is practically impossible.

As for Wally being the strongest witch, I'm told that one of the witches from the gae is even stronger, which makes sense as she traveled the galaxy to get to Earth (and possibly destroyed her home planet).

Still, the fact is, even if Madoka didn't with out from that battle, she is still dependent of grief seeds.

This doesn't make sense to me as it would place a limit on how powerful she could get, which is clearly not true considering the finale.

So what I'm reading in this is:

Homura fucked up again.

Stop breaking things girl!

From what I understand, Madoka and Walburger night are complete opposites of each other, hence why only Madoka is able to kill something that is basically an unstoppable force of nature in the eyes of other Puella Magi. Walter night is helplessness incarnate which makes sense since anybody who fights it will soon feel that it's futile to resist it, especially when they see it take their most powerful attacks and laugh like it was just told a funny joke.

Madoka as a magical girl is Hope incarnate, so even in the face of helplessness, she believes she can do something about it. Ergo, they cancel each other out.

Also, Homura's problem is she thinks everything Madoka does not logically make sense, since she expects people to only do something because either they have something to gain from it or they were forced into doing it. She views Madoka's sacrifice as something she was forced to do, not really considering the fact that Madoka put a lot of thought about it. She basically thinks she's saving Madoka from her self-sacrificial self, not really thinking that helping others is what Madoka wants to do. In a way, Homura is no different from the incubators, just replace "I don't understand" with "I cannot accept" and "human emotions" with "Madoka's actions."

So yeah, stop messing things up Homura.

edited 14th Oct '15 2:16:03 PM by Hoki

No wonder nothing Homura did made a differnce.

She'd probably given up a long time ago on some level, except for the desperate hope of somehow saving Madoka.

Against something like Walla walla bing bang nuts, she never stood a chance. She'd long since lost hope of anything.

That's why she almost witches out in the final episode of the anime. She knows she can't beat Walbourgeois right and only tries because she clings into this desperate notion that doing so will save Madoka. Kyubey telling her that her constant time jumping makes it worse for Madoka made her realize that everything she's done so far was all for naught, and only made Madoka a bigger target for Kyubey.

Heck, seeing Homura throwing herself into a battle with Waluigi Night and get her ass tossed around is basically why Madoka becomes a magical girl in some cases.

edited 14th Oct '15 2:41:50 PM by Hoki

So given the fact that Homura's the queen of screwing things up, it sort of begs the question:

What should happen to her? Should Madoka come to the realization that Homura is one of those toxic friends and banish her from space and time (which sounds doable in this world)? Or some merciful thing that I can't think up at the moment (mainly because Homura's actions at this point are unforgivable IMO)?

edited 27th Oct '15 5:52:12 PM by TargetmasterJoe

Hard to tell. Madoka has the full context of why Homura has done most of what she's done, with the exception of what happened in Rebellion (well, maybe she will understand once she gets her powers back and remembers the meadow conversation), so she knows how devoted to her Homura is, but at this point, Homura may well be a Poisonous Friend (even she likely knows it considering how much she must hate herself).

I can't picture Madoka doing anything horrible to her, but I don't think she can help her either, because Homura is well past the point of listening to anyone (including the person she's trying to save, unless said person says exactly what Homura wants to hear).

It's all on the writers to be honest.