Forum

DuskyPredator wrote:

And really again it was not a happy little status quo, the spoiler[entire universe was rewritten], Sayaka spoiler[still fell though with accepting her fate], almost no one spoiler[remembers Madoka]. Could question whether the battle of the series was with the darkness of the human soul (witches), or the spoiler[cold calculations] of Kyubey and friends, and what would have been gained by a single victory against either one.

spoiler[ The re-writing of the universe thing ] reminded me a lot of the end of the first season of Sailor Moon. In Sailor Moon, spoiler[ the universe was re-written so all of her companions come back to life and they don't remember each other anymore. So its this 'bring the fallen back to life for positive ending and wipe everyone's memory so we can start over' type of thing. I understand how they set it up for the wish pretty well, but I still found it lacking in the end. It just felt like the easy solution and didn't do something for the genre that will have a long-lasting impact for me, although the rest of the show definitely has made me think different about the genre. ]

spoiler[ As far as the real battle for the series, I definitely liked the aspect of them battling against the cold calculations of Kyubey and associates. That was one of the things that made the show so compelling for me. However, I do think that the darkness of the human soul (witches) aspect was not fully developed, though that might be because we weren't supposed to understand what was going on with the witches until towards the end. One show that did a MUCH better job of developing a similar theme was Claymore, but that was because they made it clear that that was what was going on from fairly early on. So, they had more time where you saw the girls going through the hardships of that transition and experience a lot of character development and exposition as a result. ]

ChibiKangaroo wrote:

spoiler[I thought maybe it would be more interesting this time if the suffering and remaining problems didn't all get magicked away, and maybe after Madoka's wish, Homura and Kyuubey would have to figure out how to deal with "witch" Madoka and also handle the remaining issues.]

Back up a second there. spoiler[All remaining problems did not, in fact, get magicked away. Exactly one problem did: that Magical Girls no longer have their souls corrupted into Witches. The fact that Sayaka still succumbs just as quickly in the world after Madoka makes her wish as she did in the world where witches exist shows that she still struggled with the pressure and anxiety of her choice to become a self-styled champion of justice. Kyoko is brought back to life in the sense that because Sayaka merely passed on and never became a witch, she did not have to sacrifice her life trying in vain to restore Sayaka. Mami is brought back to life because with Homura (and possibly Sayaka and Kyoko), she doesn't face Charlotte alone. Also, Kyoko's comment that Sayaka passed on just as they were becoming friends suggests that their philosophical disagreement about whether a Magical Girl should act for herself or for others is still present, and Kyoko's shift from the kind of naivety that Sayaka possessed only came about because of her family's death. As such, it can be inferred that even in the post-wish world, Kyoko still had to endure her family's death.]

Last edited by Veers on Thu Apr 12, 2012 2:51 pm; edited 2 times in total

Okay, migrating from the Vol2 review thread to not clutter it up too much any more. Will continue spoiler tagging for anyone following us over here because this conversation is about the ending.

ChibiKangaroo wrote:

I also thought it was a massive deus ex machina.

TheGotank wrote:

These episodes certainly deserve praise, but the end of the series just fell flat on its face. Every theme these episodes carefully built up got tossed aside in a deus ex machina ending that not only produced more questions than answers, but also created plot holes in the episodes before it.

Wrong for several reasons. First off, deus ex machina generally requires that the ending be resolved by something outside the scope of the story or without existing connection to the story. People seem to love to accuse Madoka's ending of being deus ex machina but it really is not at all because there are no new elements or characters introduced at the very end and everything that happens in the last episode surrounding spoiler[Madoka's wish and its consequences] is foreshadowed as early as the second episode.

As for the themes, yes, in a way some of them were tossed aside, but also in a way that's not true--the central theme of the show is not explicitly stated until the end of the 11th episode but that theme runs throughout for both the characters and many viewers. Looking at the show in that frame of mind, the other themes weren't so much discarded as they were given an answer--maybe not an answer you feel was appropriate, but that's a different discussion.

Finally, the ending does create some questions, yes, but at the same time it answers every important question the show had dealt with up to that point and it doesn't really create plot holes in the previous episodes at all. Without knowing what things you think are plot holes, though, I can't say much more. Read the link that KentaMaeba posted. The answers are all there, you just may have to do a little thinking to connect the dots.

Also, as a little disclaimer/aside on the ending thing, I wasn't really happy with the ending after I first watched it, either. After letting it stew and bit and then watching it again, though, things really started to click. If you think the ending feels a bit like a cop-out of sorts, I won't argue with the accusation (because I felt the same way) other than to say that I think it is a very well handled, way better than average cop-out, but saying that it doesn't make sense, doesn't answer questions, and doesn't fit the framework of the story (is a deus ex machina, etc.) just tells me you haven't bothered to really think about the story as a whole and how the ending fits into it.

EDIT: Cop-out in the sense that it didn't follow through with what maybe looked like was the main theme (that is, spoiler[being meguca is suffering]) which was indeed an important part of the show, but wasn't the ultimate message of the show (which was, I believe, that spoiler[holding on to hope against hope is good, that hope is not foolish, that there is inherent value in wanting the best for others]). As in, you're expecting the show to follow through with one thing and it follows through with something else--but that something else was there all along and that reversal is very much in tune with everything about the whole show.

ChibiKangaroo wrote:

I disagree with you saying that the term deus ex machina does not fit. There were things that occurred in the ending which were either outside the framework of the show or weren't properly explained. I won't go into too much detail here, maybe more in the main thread, but a few short examples would be...

Quote:

spoiler[ The fact that her wish brings people back to life.]

I think you're not thinking about the timeline in the way the show intended. No one was spoiler[brought back to life. In all those other worlds, people who died stayed dead.] What we see in the last episode spoiler[isn't some kind of reboot (in the truest sense) but rather a different branch from a previous point in the timeline in which the characters survived the ordeals that killed them in other branching timelines. This story uses many-worlds theory (check the wikipedia artice, URLs show up through spoiler tags) and the story does not take place on one single timeline that is "simply" rewound.]

Quote:

spoiler[Even given the implications of her wish, it is not 100% true that they would be alive again even in an alternate universe, particularly given what we see happen to Sayaka.]

Right, how is this a problem? I'm not sure why you listed this. Madoka didn't make a wish that no magical girls would ever die.

Quote:

spoiler[Also, without the witches, most of these characters (not just Madoka) would never have met and much of the set up for the eventual ending would never have happened.]

Not necessarily true, as Homura and Kyubey explain in the last episode. spoiler[Kyubey still makes contracts because the magical girls can still farm those majuu things--embodiments of negative energy--to help slow the heat death of the universe. The girls' lives leading up to becoming magical girls weren't really changed so it makes sense that they'd still make contracts with Kyubey and them meeting up and working together is actually more likely because they wouldn't be fighting over the scraps of cannibalization.]

The other thing is that you also can't think about the story in this show in just three (or four) dimensions. You say the setup for the eventual ending would never have happened but... that's only true if you limit your perspective to the dimensions humans can experience. spoiler[Madoka becomes a being outside of time--that is, on a higher dimension than the one we live in. As such, the branching world in which she made her wish still exists but at the same time she was able to alter one small but important parameter in every timeline ever--that being that she will destroy any witch before it is born (by absorbing the grief-ridden or MP-depelted soul of the magical girl). There is a bit of a paradox of sorts here, yes, because she went from something finite to something eternal--or did she? If she was outside of ever, then that means she was outside of time always. There's a theory discussed earlier in this thread that this even ties back into the OP and the Christian themes seen in a few places in the show. Eternal!Madoka in the OP is kissing Human!Madoka and sending her to earth to save all magical girls.] I have to run to a meeting now so I can't go into more detail but I hope this explains what I'm getting at enough to give you an idea of why I say that it still works.

Chagen46 wrote:

spoiler[The minor sci-fi aspects intrduced by Kyubey. They came out of nowhere and felt kinda cheesy. And the justfication for why only magical exist was just strange (what, boys don't have highly fluctuating emotions, too? And tween girls have the most amount of fluctuating energy? Way to pay lip service to the lolicon crowd, Gen.)]

This is one part I can't really disagree with you on. I felt like spoiler[entropy stuff] worked at a basic level to explain Kyubey's reasoning but yeah... However, if you consider the reasoning behind some other magical girl plots (have you seen Nanoha?), they can be equally as absurd at first glance--at least Gen worked something real into the story here rather than cooking up something crazy just to be crazy.

Quote:

spoiler[Okay, she's summoned some crazy-huge spears, time to kick some ass, I gues--wait, what? She self-destructed her soul gem?! When in god's name was that ability ever even forshadowed in the show? And what the hell was her decision anyway? Turn into a witch to stay with Sayaka forever? Great, Homu and Madoka are gonna have to kill BOTH of them now. I was watching with my friend, I'll admit, so I was slightly distracted. But still. It's like Gen said "Shit, let's make them suffer even MORE".]

Um, two things. First off, their battles are done via magic and there is no reason to expect particular attacks to be foreshadowed, come on. What next, are you going to complain about Mami's magic muskets not being properly foreshadowed? Second, I think you missed what was going on in that scene. spoiler[Kyoko didn't turn into a witch. She sacrificed herself for Sayaka in the ultimate expression of [platonic] love. They both died. Sayaka (in witch form) was killed and Kyoko died too--she destroyed her soul gem so she couldn't turn into a witch.]

Dorcas_Aurelia wrote:

spoiler[Mami is brought back to life because with Homura (and possibly Sayaka and Kyoko), she doesn't face Charlotte alone.]

Correction: spoiler[There is no Charlotte. Only demons (majuu). Therefore, all of the battles are different. We don't know what, when, where, and how the battles were fought in this new world before we see Sayaka's demise.

Things that don't change (EDIT: I should note that these are reasonable assumptions that the last episode seems to support - we don't fully know the impact of Madoka's wish - but scenes in the last episode support all of these): Souls being placed into soul gems. Gems becoming tainted with use. Magical girls requiring something to purify their gems (which seem to drop from the demons).

One of Sayaka's biggest issues was not being "human" anymore by having her soul placed outside her body. She felt like she couldn't be with Kyousuke as a "zombie." As you already mentioned, Dorcas_Aurelia, it would make sense for her to still die as soon as she did because the core issues that affected her didn't change much with Madoka's wish. Of course, this is only if she found out the truth in that timeline - maybe Kyubey never told her about the soul gem deal. All we see is Sayaka using up all of her magic fighting a demon and disappearing. What we also don't know is if magical girls need to farm those seeds that the demons drop, so we don't know if Sayaka would have had as much of an issue with Kyouko this time around. It's all conjecture at this point. But her dying as soon as she did makes sense.]

I just hapened to end up on the wiki page on all the yuri relationships, I am sure that it was unhealthy interest in Kyo-Saya, also learnet a bit I was not sure before. Apparently Kyouko had some sort of connection to unicorns as with Sayaka's mermaid, also got a look at Kyouko's spoiler[hypothetical witch form of Ophelia.]

Quote:

Um, two things. First off, their battles are done via magic and there is no reason to expect particular attacks to be foreshadowed, come on. What next, are you going to complain about Mami's magic muskets not being properly foreshadowed?

That's not my point. All we knew about Soul Gems was that they spoiler[held the soul of the girl so they could go past the limits of normal humans. It was never stated that the girl could actually DESTROY it intentionally. The phylactery thing WAS mildly foreshadowed, merely through the name.]

Quote:

Second, I think you missed what was going on in that scene. spoiler[Kyoko didn't turn into a witch. She sacrificed herself for Sayaka in the ultimate expression of [platonic] love. They both died. Sayaka (in witch form) was killed and Kyoko died too--she destroyed her soul gem so she couldn't turn into a witch.]

spoiler[Okay, that makes sense...and also raises another question. From the ending scene in episode 8, we learn that when soul gems break, they turn into grief seeds and the magical girl becomes a witch. Yet, in the very next episode, Kyōko destroys hers...and doesn't become a witch? I guess that the soul gem only becomes a grief seed when it's corrupted with magic.

And why would she kill HERSELF merely to take out Sayaka? She could've merely killed Sayaka and then she and Homura could've gone back to planning how to take out Walpurgisnacht, but instead Gen decides to derail her character just to torture Madoka even more. Something about Kyōko's decision just bugs me. It just seems so OOC.]

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way.[/spoiler]

@Chagen46

Kyoko comes from a religious background and in some ways Kyoko bonded with Sayaka. One might even say that Sayaka brought the light back into Kyoko's life.

spoiler[I think it merely comes down to that Kyoko doesn't want to turn into a witch like Sayaka, and doesn't want Sayaka to be alone in the afterlife.]

Last edited by Veers on Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:47 pm; edited 2 times in total

(Edit) Regarding episode 9...

Chagen46 wrote:

That's not my point. All we knew about Soul Gems was that they spoiler[held the soul of the girl so they could go past the limits of normal humans. It was never stated that the girl could actually DESTROY it intentionally. The phylactery thing WAS mildly foreshadowed, merely through the name.]

I see. Well, in the previous episode and earlier in the same episode we find out that the spoiler[Soul Gem is basically an immense energy container. Why do you have trouble accepting that it could be ASPLODED like that? Why it was never stated that a girl could actually destroy it intentionally could be for any number of acceptable reasons: Kyubey obviously wouldn't tell them this as it runs completely counter to his goal. No other magical girl (in this story, not necessarily "in the world") would say this becaues they'd have no reason to even consider trying.]

Quote:

spoiler[Okay, that makes sense...and also raises another question. From the ending scene in episode 8, we learn that when soul gems break, they turn into grief seeds and the magical girl becomes a witch. Yet, in the very next episode, Kyoko destroys hers...and doesn't become a witch? I guess that the soul gem only becomes a grief seed when it's corrupted with magic.]

Correct. Different methods. spoiler[Kyoko destroyed her soul gem. Sayaka's soul gem was not "destroyed" so much as it was corrupted. There's a considerable difference here. Their soul gem is their essence. Destroying it is a lot different than corrupting it into something else. Of course Kyoko couldn't become a witch if she was dead.]

Quote:

spoiler[And why would she kill HERSELF merely to take out Sayaka? She could've merely killed Sayaka and then she and Homura could've gone back to planning how to take out Walpurgisnacht, but instead Gen decides to derail her character just to torture Madoka even more. Something about Kyoko's decision just bugs me. It just seems so OOC.]

Two main reasons I think. One is that spoiler[she didn't want Sayaka to be alone in death and whatever comes after. It is highly likely given Kyoko's backstory that she believed in an afterlife and didn't want Sayaka to face it alone.]

The other is that spoiler[Kyoko was in pretty bad shape by then (after expending so much energy protecting Madoka) and probably wasn't sure she'd be able to beat Sayaka's witch form and come out alive. Well, that and she didn't want to turn into a witch, even if that were not going to happen as a result of this particular battle.]

Following that reason, there's also some speculation that spoiler[Kyoko did it as a big fudge you to Kyubey because she knew if she did that he wouldn't get what he wanted out of her or Sayaka (grief seeds).] There's no real good evidence for this but it's something to think about.

And finally there's the whole thing where, you know, Kyoko's spoiler[self-sacrifice is the climax of her character development, the affirmation of their friendship ("greater love has no man than he lay down his life for his friend") AND an important foreshadowing of Madoka's wish.] In a way this may be the most important reason from the narrative standpoint (while the first two answer the question from a character standpoint).

Okay, that makes sense. I understand her choice a lot better now.

Veers wrote:

ChibiKangaroo wrote:

spoiler[ The fact that her wish brings people back to life.]

I think you're not thinking about the timeline in the way the show intended. No one was spoiler[brought back to life. In all those other worlds, people who died stayed dead.] What we see in the last episode spoiler[isn't some kind of reboot (in the truest sense) but rather a different branch from a previous point in the timeline in which the characters survived the ordeals that killed them in other branching timelines. This story uses many-worlds theory (check the wikipedia artice, URLs show up through spoiler tags) and the story does not take place on one single timeline that is "simply" rewound.]

I could possibly accept this explanation if it weren't for the fact that spoiler[Homura is still a magical girl and that her wish is still active. The only reason Homura became a magical girl was because she witnessed Mami and Madoka being killed by Walpurgis Night, a powerful witch. She then made her contract to protect Madoka, which by its nature allowed her to go back in time and assist the two of them in that fight. But then she saw Madoka become a powerful witch, and that caused her to go through the extensive process which caused Madoka to generate so much potential. If Madoka's wish means that Walpurgis Night never existed and Madoka didn't become a witch, then Homura never became a magical girl and went through her whole suffering process. If this was merely a branch off to a separate timeline, then what I just said would be true. Homura's wish never would have happened and she wouldn't be a magical girl. However, the writers had to keep Homura as a magical girl because she is the only interesting protagonist at this point, so they took some kind of shortcut here. It seems more like it is not an entire separate universe but that Madoka simply altered reality of the current one while erasing herself out of it. This is why the girls still know each other, why Homura is still a magical girl, why Homura still knows about Madoka, and why Madoka's wish didn't prevent itself via an infinite time-loop (i.e. if Madoka's wish made it so Homura never became a magical girl because Madoka was never killed, then Madoka never got enough potential to make her wish and her wish couldn't have happened).]

Quote:

spoiler[Kyubey still makes contracts because the magical girls can still farm those majuu things--embodiments of negative energy--to help slow the heat death of the universe. The girls' lives leading up to becoming magical girls weren't really changed so it makes sense that they'd still make contracts with Kyubey and them meeting up and working together is actually more likely because they wouldn't be fighting over the scraps of cannibalization.]

But based on this logic, spoiler[Mami would have been killed by the same force that killed her before, only this time it would have been a majuu rather than a witch. I feel like this is further support that Madoka's wish simply brought people back to life rather than completely start a new timeline. ]

spoiler[ Additionally, it seems like all of the girls who have become magical girls were somehow brought into it in order to maintain the population of witches being born from previous magical girls, if witches never came about (thus prematurely ending the life cycle of magical girls) it seems like there'd be like a crapload more magical girls in the world.]

Quote:

The other thing is that you also can't think about the story in this show in just three (or four) dimensions. You say the setup for the eventual ending would never have happened but... that's only true if you limit your perspective to the dimensions humans can experience. spoiler[Madoka becomes a being outside of time--that is, on a higher dimension than the one we live in. As such, the branching world in which she made her wish still exists but at the same time she was able to alter one small but important parameter in every timeline ever--that being that she will destroy any witch before it is born (by absorbing the grief-ridden or MP-depelted soul of the magical girl). There is a bit of a paradox of sorts here, yes, because she went from something finite to something eternal--or did she? If she was outside of ever, then that means she was outside of time always].

I think you have to acknowledge that this is where the deus ex machina starts to creep in. I'm not saying that the writers don't try to tell us that this is how it is working, but spoiler[it still hinges on Madoka becoming some kind of omnipotent being that can mold the universe in such a way that things which don't seem to make sense somehow make sense. ] Like I said, I think they tried to set this up in the way you are describing but they weren't able to totally fix all the paradoxes and escape any hint of deus ex machina.

You know, I'm listening to the song See You Tommorow (the fake ED that plays on episodes 1 and 2), and my god, it has some depressing lyrics.

But, if you think about it, they fit perfectly. From what I remember, the character singing the song (Madoka) is hiding her doubt/worry/etc. and putting on a front so her friend (probably Hitomi) doesn't get worried herself. Given all the things Madoka learned of (so far as episode 9), it fits PERFECTLY.

Especially when you consider the scenes where they're together: Madoka looks so worried/depressed at the knowledge she's gotten, yet she hides it puts on a front for Hitomi. Dammit, that song is heartbreaking when you think about it.

I also can't deny that I sympathize. I have a lot of problems, ranging from stuff at home to my worry about my future...yet I never tell my friends about it. Hell, I rarely tell my parents. I just hide it becuae I don't want to worry my friends with my problems. Obviously, Madoka's are....quite bigger, but I really get the same feeling.

Last edited by Veers on Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:45 pm; edited 1 time in total

(Edit) Regarding the ending...

ChibiKangaroo wrote:

I could possibly accept this explanation if it weren't for the fact that spoiler[Homura is still a magical girl and that her wish is still active.]

Because Homura's wish spoiler[put her in a position to be able to transcend time, similar to Madoka--but not to the same extent because Homura remined a finite being.] You can get fixated on this point but that's a waste of time because we're speaking of theoreticals and fictional magic.

Quote:

spoiler[The only reason Homura became a magical girl was because she witnessed Mami and Madoka being killed by Walpurgis Night, a powerful witch. She then made her contract to protect Madoka, which by its nature allowed her to go back in time and assist the two of them in that fight. But then she saw Madoka become a powerful witch, and that caused her to go through the extensive process which caused Madoka to generate so much potential. If Madoka's wish means that Walpurgis Night never existed and Madoka didn't become a witch, then Homura never became a magical girl and went through her whole suffering process. If this was merely a branch off to a separate timeline, then what I just said would be true. Homura's wish never would have happened and she wouldn't be a magical girl. However, the writers had to keep Homura as a magical girl because she is the only interesting protagonist at this point, so they took some kind of shortcut here. It seems more like it is not an entire separate universe but that Madoka simply altered reality of the current one while erasing herself out of it. This is why the girls still know each other, why Homura is still a magical girl, why Homura still knows about Madoka, and why Madoka's wish didn't prevent itself via an infinite time-loop (i.e. if Madoka's wish made it so Homura never became a magical girl because Madoka was never killed, then Madoka never got enough potential to make her wish and her wish couldn't have happened).]

There is a very "easy and sensible" way to explain this. spoiler[There is only one Homura, in a sense. As far as the scope of the show goes, there are many of the other characters (one of each in those parallel universes), but the Homura at the start of this story is the same Homura who dimension/world-hopped, bringing her experiences with her into her "placeholder" in the other world/timeline. Considering it this way, everything makes sense to me. If Homura's magic lets her transcend the dimension of time while retaining her experiences in time, then that explains whey Homura is still a magical girl, why Homura still knows about Madoka, and (to an extent) why Madoka's wish didn't prevent itself via an infinite time-loop. Madoka didn't simply alter one timeline's reality--the show makes that very clear both through Madoka's dialog and the imagery itself. There are many universes here, but the story only follows the one thing they have in common to connect them: Akemi Homura.]

Quote:

But based on this logic, spoiler[Mami would have been killed by the same force that killed her before, only this time it would have been a majuu rather than a witch. I feel like this is further support that Madoka's wish simply brought people back to life rather than completely start a new timeline. ]

Nope. The majuu and witches behave differently--how differently the show doesn't go into, but they behave differently. Based on this logic, spoiler[Mami would have never even been called to the hospital by Madoka because Charolette would have never turned into a witch and set up a labrynth there. It's pretty simple, really. People weren't wished back to life. Now, you could make the case that the universe we saw in episodes 1-11 was "replaced" by a single new universe (rather than it being a parallel universe where the situation isn't quite as bad), effectively bringing people back to life. I don't think that is the what happened, though, and the reason I say this is because of Madoka's line to Sayaka at the end of the show when she says (paraphrased) "to save your life I'd have to undo [nullify, make for naught] everything you worked for and I didn't want to do that because I didn't think you'd want that."]

Quote:

spoiler[ Additionally, it seems like all of the girls who have become magical girls were somehow brought into it in order to maintain the population of witches being born from previous magical girls, if witches never came about (thus prematurely ending the life cycle of magical girls) it seems like there'd be like a crapload more magical girls in the world.]

Quite possible. The story doesn't indicate one way or the other but frankly it doesn't matter.

Quote:

I think you have to acknowledge that this is where the deus ex machina starts to creep in. I'm not saying that the writers don't try to tell us that this is how it is working, but spoiler[it still hinges on Madoka becoming some kind of omnipotent being that can mold the universe in such a way that things which don't seem to make sense somehow make sense. ] Like I said, I think they tried to set this up in the way you are describing but they weren't able to totally fix all the paradoxes and escape any hint of deus ex machina.

Maybe there is a hint of deus ex machina, but I think you are still misusing the term. spoiler[Madoka would have a deus ex machina ending if, say, some other magical girl not mentioned in the story were to make the wish Madoka made and save them all at the last minute without us or the characters knowing anything about it. THAT would be deus ex machina. What we have in Madoka is a character essentially becoming a god, yes, but (pardon my wordplay) a character becoming a god via a system built into the story is not the same thing as a deus ex machina (the storytelling technique) when said development is set up to the extent as Madoka's is.] I'm not saying you have to like it, nor am I saying that there is nothing in common with a typical deus ex machina and the ending that Madoka has, I'm just saying don't drag it down to something it's technically not, because technically I don't think it's fair to dismiss Madoka's ending as a deus ex machina.

Anyway, got another meeting to get to so can't get into more detail right now, will check back later.

Two questions:

1. Is there some place besides Crunchyroll that's streaming this? Crunchyroll is only up to episode 9, slightly ahead of the DVD/BD release.

2. If the answer to Q1 is "no," is the discussion following this post actually safe for those following the Crunchyroll/DVD/BD release? These enormous blocks of spoiler text in the following pages are quite intimidating.

Boomerang Flash wrote:

Two questions:

1. Is there some place besides Crunchyroll that's streaming this? Crunchyroll is only up to episode 9, slightly ahead of the DVD/BD release.

2. If the answer to Q1 is "no," is the discussion following this post actually safe for those following the Crunchyroll/DVD/BD release? These enormous blocks of spoiler text in the following pages are quite intimidating.

1. Not now, no.

2. Yes, mostly. This page in particular though is mostly spillover from the discussion about the ending that was spillover from the volume 2 review talkback. This is still kinda the go-to thread for Madoka discussion, though, so if you want to discuss the streaming/homevideo release then go for it!

EDIT: For the benefit of anyone trying to read this thread with only knowledge of the crunchyroll broadcast/aniplex release, I am going to add BEWARE ENDING SPOILERS to all my posts. So you have been warned now.

ChibiKangaroo wrote:

spoiler[It seems more like it is not an entire separate universe but that Madoka simply altered reality of the current one while erasing herself out of it. This is why the girls still know each other, why Homura is still a magical girl, why Homura still knows about Madoka, and why Madoka's wish didn't prevent itself via an infinite time-loop (i.e. if Madoka's wish made it so Homura never became a magical girl because Madoka was never killed, then Madoka never got enough potential to make her wish and her wish couldn't have happened).]

If what you say is true, why is that a bad thing. It was stated by Kyuubi quite a while ago that Madoka's potential was so great that she might be able to do things like alter the very laws of the universe or become an all powerful goddess. So, why is spoiler[Madoka's wish doing something quite like that a dues ex machina?]

Anyways, here's my understanding as to what happens at the end.

spoiler[Homura's time travel and Madoka's wish may have resulted in multiple universes, or may have reset/altered the current universe. I actually think it was the latter, so I disagree with Veers here. But I don't think it matter much for the purpose of this particular discussion.]

spoiler[Madoka wished to eliminate Witches before they come into existence. Thus, it would become impossible for people to be killed by Witches. Thus, Madoka's wish naturally did one of two things: created a new universe where no Witches ever existed, and thus, some people who were killed by Witches in previous universes were still alive. Or, she could have altered the history of the current universe so that no Witches ever existed, and thus some people who were killed by Witches in previous histories "came back to life" in a sense, though it's more that Madoka altered the past so that they were never killed in the first place.

Regardless of answer, it makes perfect sense. Witches have been altered in the current timeline/universe so that they never existed in the first place, so naturally that's going to have an effect on people who were killed by Witches.]

spoiler[The main cast are still magical girls, and some of them still know each other, because Magical girls still exist, they just work a bit differently now. Regardless, the people with both the potential and the desire to be Magical Girls are going to pretty much be the same people as before. Sayaka is still going to want to heal her friend, whether or not there are Witches to fight or not.]

spoiler[Homura retains her powers, as well as her memories. Why? Well, because the nature of her wish already made her an existence outside the normal flow of time and the universe. Homura's wish allowed her to reset time/go to a new universe where Madoka had never died. Regardless of which, she was suddenly in a place where Madoka had never died, thus, the reason she made her wish no longer existed.

And yet, she still had her powers, and her memories. Because that was required by her wish. Her wish wasn't just to go back in time. It was to be able to go back in time as someone who could protect Madoka, and to do that, she had to remember why Madoka needed protection in the first place, and she had to have powers so that she could actually protect her. Homura's wish made herself a being that could retain memories of previous timelines and maintain her powers as a magical girl even when the event that gave her those powers in the first place no longer occurred in the current timeline.

And so, perhaps with a little extra help from Madoka, Homura retained her memories even in the new universe Madoka created.]

Quote:

spoiler[Kyubey still makes contracts because the magical girls can still farm those majuu things--embodiments of negative energy--to help slow the heat death of the universe. The girls' lives leading up to becoming magical girls weren't really changed so it makes sense that they'd still make contracts with Kyubey and them meeting up and working together is actually more likely because they wouldn't be fighting over the scraps of cannibalization.]

But based on this logic, spoiler[Mami would have been killed by the same force that killed her before, only this time it would have been a majuu rather than a witch. I feel like this is further support that Madoka's wish simply brought people back to life rather than completely start a new timeline. ]

Huh? I'm not sure what you're trying to say.spoiler[ Just because Magical Girls exist and fight majuu doesn't mean that every battle is going to go exactly how it did when they fought Witches. That makes no sense. Even when they fought the same Witches over and over again thanks to Homura's time travel, the battles sometimes went differently, so why would it be the same when they were fighting rather different beings?]

Quote:

spoiler[ Additionally, it seems like all of the girls who have become magical girls were somehow brought into it in order to maintain the population of witches being born from previous magical girls, if witches never came about (thus prematurely ending the life cycle of magical girls) it seems like there'd be like a crapload more magical girls in the world.]

spoiler[I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to say that, but... how do you know there aren't a crapload more Magical Girls? But actually, there shouldn't be a ton more, because Madoka's wish doesn't mean "Magical Girl who falls into despair and would normally turn into a Witch doesn't, instead she lives on and has a long life." It means "Magicial Girl who falls into despair and would normally turn into a Witch doesn't, instead Madoka takes on the corruption and the girl disappears."]

Quote:

The other thing is that you also can't think about the story in this show in just three (or four) dimensions. You say the setup for the eventual ending would never have happened but... that's only true if you limit your perspective to the dimensions humans can experience. spoiler[Madoka becomes a being outside of time--that is, on a higher dimension than the one we live in. As such, the branching world in which she made her wish still exists but at the same time she was able to alter one small but important parameter in every timeline ever--that being that she will destroy any witch before it is born (by absorbing the grief-ridden or MP-depelted soul of the magical girl). There is a bit of a paradox of sorts here, yes, because she went from something finite to something eternal--or did she? If she was outside of ever, then that means she was outside of time always].

I think you have to acknowledge that this is where the deus ex machina starts to creep in. I'm not saying that the writers don't try to tell us that this is how it is working, but spoiler[it still hinges on Madoka becoming some kind of omnipotent being that can mold the universe in such a way that things which don't seem to make sense somehow make sense. ] Like I said, I think they tried to set this up in the way you are describing but they weren't able to totally fix all the paradoxes and escape any hint of deus ex machina.

This is where a common misunderstanding of dues ex machina comes into play. A dues ex machina, despite it's name, does not mean "a godlike power solves the problem." It means a case where a power (godlike or otherwise), character, tool, etc, that was never established or hinted at in the story beforehand solves a problem. A dues ex machina doesn't have to even involve anything particularly godlike, the basic idea is that it's something that comes from nowhere and couldn't have been predicted beforehand.

But it was clearly established in the series that Magical Girls and their wishes could do strange things and create paradoxes, and it was also established that Madoka had potential far beyond normal Magical Girls, beyond what was even theoretically possible, so that even Kyuubi didn't understand what the heck she was. It was also stated that Madoka could become a goddess and warp the laws of the universe itself.

spoiler[So Madoka doing just that is not a dues ex machina. If you want to argue that they should have explained the technical details of just how she altered the universe more, ok, I could see that, though I think most of the details can be grasped after some thought. But even if they could have explained the nitty gritty details more, the ending as a whole still fits in with the story and what was established beforehand, and thus, is not a dues ex machina.]

Forum - View topic
Puella Magi Madoka Magica (TV + movies).

Singer, Voice Actress Suzuko Mimori Moves to the U.S.

This Week in Anime - Is The Anime Girl Band Era Here?

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Video Game Review

Kakuriyo -Bed & Breakfast for Spirits- Anime Gets 2nd Season in Fall 2025

The Spring 2024 Manga Guide

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron HD Remaster Video Game Review

Manhwa and Manga: Similar but Different Art Forms

This Week in Anime - How The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio Captures the Reality of Gig Work

Shaman King Flowers Anime Series Review

The Grimm Variations Anime Series Review

Anime to Watch if You Liked Shogun

Forum - View topicPuella Magi Madoka Magica (TV + movies).

Forum

Forum - View topic
Puella Magi Madoka Magica (TV + movies).