Massive Decay: Dark Magical Girl

If she needs to be The Rival, doesn't this mean the Teen Titans quote needs to go?

edited 2nd Oct '11 11:31:10 AM by ThatHuman

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Probably.

I don't know that she's always The Rival.

Either way the quote fits quite well when taken out of context, but in context is incorrect, as Raven is not based on Dark Magical Girl motifs, but rather on the supertrope of the Dark Sorceress combined with the innocent child sacrifice by demon worshipers..

Which results in a lot of similarities to a Dark Magical Girl... but isn't quite the same trope.

Why do we need a new description though? We gave it a new one, are we sure that description is failing? Or did we just fail to clean up the examples?

edited 2nd Oct '11 12:51:56 PM by Sackett

The description fails to state up front exactly what a Dark Magical Girl is. It instead describes the personality type, which I think is what's inviting people to use it for "angsty magical female characters".

Dark Counterpart has been YKTTW'd btw, but I can't find the permalink anymore. Help? Got it.

edited 2nd Oct '11 2:13:08 PM by Elle

Seconded

There needs to be a "A Dark Magical Girl is......" somewhere in the trope description.

If there is anyone still trying to find misuse, Dark Magical Girl is composed of:

Magical Girl, Ie Sailor Moon, of course, requiring a girl who uses magic; and 'Dark'.

However, what qualifies as 'dark'? Brooding, angst, gothic, demonic (racist offences not intended), likes the dark, lonely, sinful, evil, questionable, dainty, etc, etc, etc.

And also, a bit late but the Most Common Superpower deals with the fact that many fictional women (and men, unfortunately) have a big set, if not most of the gender. Whether or not they're a superhero or not is irrelevant, as this is talking about an attribute, not an archtype.

edited 2nd Oct '11 3:47:28 PM by MikaruKeiko

Until death do we part

Most Common Superpower is actually a trope that says that Western Style Superheroine character design always includes a huge rack. Characters that aren't Western style superheroines or supervillians don't count.

It's talking about both an attribute and an archetype.

edited 2nd Oct '11 3:53:39 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Sorry, can we not re-raise that here? It's no longer relevant to the thread, if it ever was. What would be relevant now would be input on the proposed new description (On prior page)

edited 2nd Oct '11 4:00:58 PM by Elle

Ignore :Sigh:

edited 2nd Oct '11 4:01:48 PM by MikaruKeiko

Until death do we part

So basically we just need a better introduction paragraph that doesn't assume we know what a Magical Girl is and why a Dark Magical Girl is different beyond just extra angst and costumes that run towards black and navy blue?

"A Magical Girl is a force for good and light. But every bright light has a shadow. Every virtue has a Dark Side. The Dark Magical Girl is this for the Magical Girl. Every virtue that powers a Magical Girl is twisted to serve evil as the Dark Magical Girl."

How's that?

We can use the Homura quote that summed up how being a Magical Girl sucks.

edited 2nd Oct '11 5:26:24 PM by Sackett

Bringing the description proposal over here so it actually gets seen, and stealing Sacket's opener. Homura's quote is a good one but it's already being used as the page quote for Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

A Magical Girl is a force for good and light. But every bright light has a shadow. Every virtue has a Dark Side. The Dark Magical Girl is this for the Magical Girl. Every virtue that powers a Magical Girl is twisted to serve evil as the Dark Magical Girl. For many a Magical Girl, this character is her Rival, Dark Counterpart and Anti-Villain.

A recurring staple character in the Magical Girl Genre, the Dark Magical Girl often serves as The Dragon to the series Big Bad. Yet rarely if ever is she truly or irredeemably evil. Her dark demeanor is an expression of a tragic past (or present). While the Magical Girl heroines of the story are kind, sociable, make friends easily and understand The Power of Love and The Power of Friendship, the Dark Magical Girl is withdrawn, cynical, and friendless. The Dark Magical Girl therefore may turn to the Big Bad for their approval because they're apparently the only one who thinks she's worth anything. It will fall to the heroine then to prove her wrong; the Dark Magical Girl probably doesn't want the heroine's pity however and the heroine may have to blast her several times before she'll listen. Having the Rivals Team Up is inevitable, and once finally shown the light, the Dark Magical Girl will be just as or even more fiercely loyal to the heroine as she was to the villain.

The abilities of the Dark Magical Girl are often the polar opposite to the Magical Girl. She is also usually faster, smarter, and more ruthless then the MG, making her the primary obstacle to the MG's triumph. Younger Dark Magical Girls tend to be Little Miss Badasses, even if they are a Cute Witch. If she is a Magical Girl Warrior, she's frequently a Lady of War. One common way of signalling a Dark Magical Girl is her outfit is usually slightly more fetishy and dark, which might explain why a Heel–Face Turn doesn't always mean a switch in costume.

edited 2nd Oct '11 5:31:57 PM by Elle

Then lets use Homura's line in episode one:

"Do you value your life? Do you think that your family and friends are important to you? ... If they are, then you should never think of changing yourself. Otherwise, you will lose everything that is precious to you."

That line was pretty important in giving Homura the "Dark Magical Girl" aura that everyone tagged her with. Falsely.

That's good but I wonder if the two quotes aren't better switched (and whether we can do so without a fandom riot).

Should Homura really be used as a quote? Madoka Magica has no straight examples of that. Homura just seems that way, but she's never a rival. I'm pretty sure this didn't actually require spoilering.

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As a Deconstruction, there's very few striaght examples of any Magical Girl Tropes in Madoka. Deconstructions tend to be very apt for illustrative quoting purposes.

Isn't this trope more about loneliness than straight up soul-shattering despair? The quote just goes "being a Magical Girl is not a happy life"*

, not much about loneliness, and nothing about rivalry. Seriously, it's lacking the most important part.

edited 3rd Oct '11 8:23:58 AM by ThatHuman

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Well it's still open to suggestions, and we don't have to hinge the completion of this thread on it.

Does anyone object to me replacing the description with the current replacement proposal? If you do object, state your case.

Why do we need to replace the whole description? Isn't just replacing the opening paragraph enough? You're cutting out a bunch of other stuff.

I'm trying to make a description that's about that which is essential to the trope, to reduce confusion as much as possible. If you think I'm missing anything, say so.

Plus, IMO the current one is a bit too heavy on the Purple Prose.

Bump. If I don't see any concrete input here within the next day or so, I'm running with the description and the example cleanup.

Go ahead with the cleanup, but the quote has to be gone. It describes Magical Girls in general for the Madoka universe, not a specific character.

edited 6th Oct '11 1:00:17 AM by ThatHuman

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I'll leave it quoteless.

I oppose the change to the description because it combines several topics into a single paragraph and basically doesn't do as good a job of describing the Dark Magical Girl.

The current description is formatted in this way:

1: Thesis: Magical Girl contrasted with Dark Magical Girl, her Shadow Archetype.

2: Short summary of the normal Magical Girl backstory (happy and carefree)

3: Contrasting the Dark Magical Girl backstory (sad and angst filled) with the above short summary.

4: How the Dark Magical Girl fits into the show dynamic and plot. IE She's The Dragon, what her motivation usually is for opposing the Magical Girl.

5: The Dark Magical Girl used as a story of redemption.

6: Physical Attributes of the Dark Magical Girl compared to the Magical Girl

Each paragraph above has an identifiable theme that allows the description to flow properly, and ensure each essential element of the Dark Magical Girl is highlighted. What exactly are you identifying as non-essential?

Proposed description:

1: Thesis: Magical Girl contrasted with Dark Magical Girl, The Rival.

2: She's the Dragon, has a tragic backstory compared to the happy Magical Girl, providing her motivation to fight the Magical Girl who redeems the Dark Magical Girl by blasting her repeatedly.

3: Physical Attributes of the Dark Magical Girl compared to the Magical Girl

First off, I disagree with the thesis, as I think the Shadow Archetype element is the most important part of the Dark Magical Girl rather then being The Rival. The Rival element naturally flows being a Shadow Archetype.

Additionally, the proposed description takes three important elements of the Dark Magical Girl and reduces them to a single line in a paragraph that is just a list of attributes without describing the way they fit into the overall thesis of the Dark Magical Girl as the Shadow Archetype (nor the thesis of being The Rival).

I feel the proposed description will focus attention on the physical attributes of the Dark Magical Girl rather then the emotional and plot relevance of the Dark Magical Girl. This is because the physical attributes get their own separate paragraph.

I ask for a vote on the matter.

As for the Homura quotes, they works not as a description of a Dark Magical Girl, but rather as what a Dark Magical Girl would say. It demonstrates the trope rather then describing it.

edited 6th Oct '11 5:53:30 AM by Sackett

Right, thank you. I don't have time to answer in full right now but the detail is what I was asking for, and I won't go changing the article without trying to incorporate the feedback and posting that for comment.

It kinda does sound like what a Dark Magical Girl might say, but other types of character might say that kind of stuff too. Really, pretty much any miserable super hero might say "With kindness comes naïveté. Courage becomes foolhardiness. And dedication has no reward". Only the sentence after that has any mention of magic, and even then it doesn't relate to being The Rival, or the kind of loneliness that comes with this trope. There's nothing there that's unique to Dark Magical Girl. Plus there's the fact that she isn't one.

edited 6th Oct '11 10:22:52 PM by ThatHuman

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