Forum - View topicInterview: Gen Urobuchi
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Juno016
 Posts: 2394 |
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Thanks for the clarity. I get what you mean, then. You can change a person's perspective of a choice, but you can't always change a person's core beliefs.
This may not change the general consensus from everyone, but I believe I remember reading about how many of the seiyuu felt sad for her and one of them claimed that she was left off in an unfortunate circumstance where she was forced to accept it, so she felt it wasn't really a happy ending. In a later interview, she said that the wings reminded her of a Witch. It's entirely possible that the interpretation of the ending to the series changes based greatly on cultural interpretation as well. Urobuchi hasn't clarified his own stance on whether or not he thought her acceptance at the end was a good or bad thing for her, so we can't really try to read any pre-determined intent out of the ending, either. Just our personal experience and view. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5840 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Could Homura really be called obsessive in the TV show? Madoka, her best friend, gave Homura the last Grief Seed as they lay dying, so that Homura could live, and try to save everyone deceived by Kyubey. Does that make her obsessive, that she actually tried doing that and didn't give up. What would we be calling her, if she actually gave up. What would Homura think of herself for failing to honor the life that was given to her?
Madoka, Saki, and the others went into Homura's prison willingly to free her, and their reward for this action was a personal betrayal and a mind wipe. In what world would this not be evil. Are you really saying, that if your mind was wiped, your memories stolen, and you lived a lie for years, before it your memories eventually resurfaced that you wouldn't consider such actions as evil. I have no problem with the movies changing things up from the TV series. I also could have gotten along with the twisting of Homura's character because of the Kyubey's evil experimentation and imprisonment of Homura. Though I wouldn't have been happy that they made Homura evil. Yes, in Rebellion they laid the seeds for Homura's slip into evil, but the writers screwed that up too. In the final battle with the Kyubeys, Homura intended to end her life and become a full witch, trapped forever in her mind. Never ever to see Madoka again, forever denied Madoka. I fail to see how someone willing to lose Madoka forever, could turn around and betray her best friend in the world, and do the things she did to her and her friends. Including that powerful scene in Rebellion, killed whatever believability the writers were going for in Homura's transition to evil. I know some see the alteration of Homura's character as a genius of creativity on the part of the writers. I am just sad they decided to trash Homura, instead of using the established Demons from the end of the TV show as their creative field, or even bringing in some actual evil Magical Girls. The Kyubey's never cared about Good or Evil, so it makes sense (and is even hinted about) that there are some evil magical girls. |
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Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
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I wouldn't say the QBs succeeding in their plot and what Homura did are on the same level; Homura's actions towards the former were to keep Madoka from being enslaved, while in the latter she herself made it perfectly clear she only ripped her personality off, keeping Madoka's wish more-or-less technically intact as I recall. She was definitely being selfish with the latter, but had enough excuses handy to fool herself into believing God was on her side.
As for whether she's properly obsessive, she's been looping for maybe even centuries; even a few cycles would start taking their toll. Saving Madoka was quite litterally the one thing keeping her going for who knows how long. |
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TarsTarkas
Posts: 5840 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Think you are misunderstanding me a bit on this point.
It is not about equating the Kyubey's actions, with the evil Homura's actions. It was what Homura was willing to do to save Madoka from the Kyubey's in the final battle with them. That action clearly showed Homura's humanity and that she was not obsessive about her friendship with Madoka in a negative way. A person willing to suffer that much, and lose all contact with her friend forever, is not a person that would betray their friend a short while later because she was obsessed about keeping Madoka forever. That major disconnect is the writer's fault. Unless the writers are saying that Homura is now a twisted psychopathic character, mad from the torture and imprisonment she suffered (for who knows how long) from the Kyubeys. Clearly mad and delusional, like Hexadecimal from the ReBoot TV series. |
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Animerican14
 Posts: 963 Location: Saint Louis, MO |
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Perhaps it's my Western Judeo-Christian worldview, one that acknowledges the importance of free will and that there can exist clear "good" and clear "evil," that's informing me most of all here, but I felt that Homura's actions in the end of Rebellion were ultimately not "right." I didn't feel particularly compelled to examine how morally "correct" her actions were because I already found them innately objectionable. Now, can her reasons be understandable at an emotional, human level, and given depth by the events and character development that unfold through Rebellion? I'd say so! It's also left up in the air if Homura's actions have made anything worse in actuality, given how minimally the consequences of her actions are explored in the film's final act. But that, to me, still can't excise the selfishness and innate wrongness of it all or absolve her of responsibility for her decisions and actions. Can you feel for someone who steals to help pay for a sick relative, or a person who carried out vigilante "justice" after having horrible wrongs committed to him or his family? Sure, but that doesn't, or shouldn't, really make it any less wrong.
That said, TarsTarkas, I don't think you're giving enough credit to neither Urobuchi nor Homura's complexity. Even before the notion of there being a film-sequel of the TV series was put out there, there was definitely been some gray ambiguity inherent in Homura's obsession with Madoka. True, her backstory in episode 10, deservingly regarded as one of the very best episodes in a phenomenal series, demonstrates much of the 'purity' there is in her intentions and demonstrates the sharpest character transition from her initial rival/antagonist status. But then the TV anime also clearly shows, not only in the progression of timelines in episode 10 but through much of the entire series, how she's hurt herself and others along the way and had developed a certain (yet understandable) callousness in regard to others, even Madoka in the series' main timeline. As Juno016 stated in an earlier reply to you, "The plot of timelines in the original series was pretty much a series of them stepping on each other's desires so they could make the other happy." ---- You know, two-thirds of my last post in this thread had to do with a sincere desire to clear up any remaining questions or misunderstandings with Zac and JesuOtaku, and apologies if that crowded out discussion in the thread. I think it also kind of buried the other third of my post, which contained some question(s) I brought up re: Urobuchi's worldview on 'morality" as approached in his work. There's been some great recent discussion on the purported 'moral ambiguity' of Homura's actions at the end of Rebellion, but I still don't feel I've reached the understanding of Urobuchi I'm looking for after reading the interview. Yeah, there are things I really need to have spelled out to me at times. 
I haven't devoted much time lately to reconnecting myself with Urobuchi's writings or his general authorship, so I feel I can only make non-specific generalizations or rephrasals of others' generalizations. Would appreciate some help in figuring him out in this regard! |
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