Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Headscratchers

I'm in despair! The fact that my despair left me in despair!

 * As of episode 9 we now know Kyubey's real goals (if he's actually being entirely truthful this time). However even if what he is saying is true, I really doubt that  For instance I doubt a witch could regenerate the used energy of a star in an hour. Much less the whole universe.
 * IT'S MAGIC. I AIN'T GOTTA EXPLAIN SHIT.
 * But on a more serious note, we're not sure what the conversion rate between normal energy and  energy is. Maybe one can effectively replace a star with enough emotion. And we know Kyuubey has enough contracts that there is active fighting for territory amongst the Magical Girls, not to mention that
 * Still, we're talking about
 * It is explicitly shown that magic can generate amounts of power comparable to the Big Bang. That was a special case, of course, but even a non-special magical girl who still has to rely on conventional weapons was able to rewind time and create GOD in the process. Think for a second what magnitude of power an ability like this actually implies. No, we have every reason to believe that the magical girl system can serve its intended purpose. Soul Gems/Grief Seeds most likely serve as hypertech containing devices, storing nearly all energy generating during a magical girl\witch lifecycle, so it doesn't obliterate the entire Milky Way galaxy, or something like this.
 * There are a couple of things to be considered here:
 * Kyubey's explanation to Madoka was an extremely simplified one. In fact, he even makes a few small mistakes, since energy and entropy are closely related, but not the same thing. It's quite possible that he/they know more about the universe than we do and he just tried to give an explanation that she would understand.
 * From a narrative perspective, this is a Cosmic Horror Story. One of the key points is that the antagonists are not just evil, but too alien to comprehend. Madoka obviously didn't get one iota of his explanation and only cares that they are being sacrificed for something that would in no way, shape or form ever impact them. Remember, Kyubey is worrying about something that will happen along the lines of 10^50 years from now. This may be a big deal for them, but the human race wouldn't care less.
 * Combining points 1 and 2, we have no clue just what exactly Kyubey is going for. Perhaps the collected energy is not subject to decay and can be stored to fuel one island of civilization inside a dead universe forever. Perhaps they are testing whether the energy can be farmed on a more controlled basis. Perhaps we're already on the brink of heat death and we just don't know it. All that matters for story purposes is that the reasons are outside of human comprehension. What makes Lovecraftian gods so scary is that they are not just evil (because something like Satan's evil, we can still comprehend), but we don't even know why they do what they are doing or whether they can even reason at all. The writers here are going for the same effect.
 * We're really not on the brink of heat-death if the sun's still burning. Any star able to support life would have burned out billions of billions of years before the true heat-death of the universe - current estimates are 10^100 years before the galactic nuclei go cold, which is to the current age of the universe more or less what the current age of the universe is to one Earth year.
 * But even if we take for granted that harvesting angst energy will work and our Puny Earthling knowledge just isn't enough to understand why, why are they going after single individuals and giving them a choice? Given that they have absolutely no understanding of or respect for free will, emotion, or the sanctity of life, wouldn't it be more efficient to make factory farms or put all humans into The Matrix instead?
 * I, for one, think he's full of shit.
 * Kyubey does seem to understand the notion of morality. He does seem to have principles like "don't lie" or "don't outright force or mind control" and a basic notion of fairness. It's quite possible that he wants to act in an ethical manner. They're just alien ethics. In fact, he more than once voices frustration about how bizarre human ethical standards are. Remember that, for example, asking interest or bribing officials are considered taboo in some parts of the world, while in many other places, they are considered perfectly natural aspects of business. Something similar may be going on here.
 * So by Episode 10, we know that once Madoka becomes a witch, she can destroy the entire world, along with all human on it, in 10 days. As QB came to Earth to harvest energy to prevent the heat death of the universe, rooting out the source doesn't sounds like a good idea in the long term. While it does mention that he has met his quota, you would think something like saving the universe to be a more long-term plan.
 * Perhaps that's because the moment Madoka becomes a witch and kills everything, she now no longer has anything that can kill her. Since she also violates the first and second laws of thermodynamics and keeps emitting despair, she would basically be an eternal star that could fuel Kyubey's civilization past heat death forever. Admittedly, this is becoming WMG, but it would make the ultimate And I Must Scream Downer Ending.
 * It is possible that Kyubey is either a messenger, programmed to gather certain amounts of energy, or an alien equivalent of Corrupt Corporate Executive, who only cares about meeting his quota. Alternatively it was said that Incubators can use other species than humanity as well, so any particular species might be considered expendable... This is a Cosmic Horror Story after all, and "using up" a species can be perfectly acceptable for them, if the energy obtained will allow the Universe to go long enough for many new sentient lifeforms to arise. For that matter, with their implied level of tech, they can recreate humanity in some other place too. In fact, judging by certain strange details of Madoka's world, this might have happened in the past already.
 * Or he had an ulterior motive for saying this to Homura. Like, ensuring that she will keep "charging" Madoka with repeated rewinds. Why even talk with Homura otherwise? He can't either gloat or empathise with her and she's (if Kyubey is actually clueless) a walking corpse who doesn't have anything it wants.
 * Actually he says that Magic is an energy NOT BOUND BY Thermodynamics. Which means Mana is reusable energy. If you take this interpretation it becomes scientifically correct. They wouldn't need to continually produce enough to counter the Entropy increase in the universe, just enough to turn the population into perpetual mobiles before the heat death. This would in turn make stars obsolete.
 * There is still a problem here, though, and a rather serious one at that. Namely, entropy is not what will ultimately do us in. The current model of the universe suggests that dark energy will tear every last thing in the universe apart in the so-called "Big Rip", long before the heat death of the universe becomes a problem. Unless the Incubators can somehow deal with that, what they are doing is completely pointless as the universe will be rendered uninhabitable long before anyone has to worry about entropy.
 * If the Incubators can grant miracles, it's possible that they can also stop the "Big Rip". Or maybe our current model of the universe is completely wrong. Remember, the Incubators are much more advanced than us.


 * Why must it be pubescent girls? Like, plenty of people have emotional conflicts to be farmed. People of all genders and ages. If it's just for pun's sake, Kyubey's species is pretty cringe-worthy on doing so. I bet if he asked for, let's say, a bunch of nerds to contract with him, they not only would ask the details of the contract, but accept it anyways, by knowing that they'd basically become liches (it'd actually be really cool to many) and fight with awesome powers (not to mention they'd probably become kinda powerful witches, since most nerds tend to rage and despair a lot). And one of them would probably wish to reverse entropy, considering they're nerds. Then again, such a wish could put the whole Universe at risk (not to mention that quite a few nerds would just wish for animu waifus or to know how to speak Klingon)... Or, I dunno, just ask to emokids. Falling to Despair is what they're good at.
 * Kyubey has said it himself that the emotional state of girls on the cusp of puberty is just the most efficient for farming energy off of. Of course, he didn't say how much more efficient they are than the rest of humanity.
 * Is it bad that the thought of Kyubey looking to nerds made me wish I lived in such a universe?
 * Not at all. A rational person would recognize this as an opportunity to get literally anything once, followed by rather impressive magical powers for a time, in exchange for your soul and life. There are many calm, reasonable people who'd be glad to take advantage of an offer like that; it gives you the chance to make massive and permanent changes to the world or the universe, much more than a person could normally achieve over the course of their life. Of course, a calm reasonable person would never be given the offer in the first place, since they wouldn't be worth enough emotional energy to justify whatever the cost of granting a wish is. Little girls would swing from the hope and joy of getting magical powers for no cost that they're aware of, to the despair of realizing everything they've sacrificed, all for the low cost of curing one sick person or something equally trivial in the grand scheme of things.
 * It's to poke a fun at why Magic Users need to be Girls. Deconstruction, duh.
 * About that "Reverse Entropy" one, I'm guessing that even though they are Sufficiently Advanced Aliens and then some, and have something they refer to as black-box magic to boot, Kyubey's people cannot do things that they cannot do. If they could reverse entropy with a snap of their fingers they would just do it, rather than all this. If magic works such that they could only do it if they found someone who'd wish for it they'd make that their selection criteria instead, or go about their plan with the goal of convincing somebody on the face of the planet that that was what they wanted (hint: Explicitly tie "reverse entropy" to "stop my people from doing X to you"). Reversing Entropy all at once is simply beyond their power.
 * I buy before the twelfth episode why it has to be pubescent girls.
 * More or less for the same reason, emotions power Magical Girls... the stronger they are (emotionally), the more powerful they become. That and the system changed but some things still remain.

Specifics are for the losers!

 * Putting aside the Awful Truth, why doesn't anyone consider wishing for something like, "I wish that no living creature would ever get cancer again"? They talk about money and power and luxury and saving individual lives, but never anything big, which seems like a bit of a waste of a wish that can literally do anything. If you're going to gamble your life, it seems like you should try to get as much out of the deal as possible. Madoka does learn this in the final episode.
 * Probably because the fact that they're girls going through puberty. How many of you at that age would think, "Let's cure cancer," and actually wish it?
 * A lot of us, actually.
 * That's not an emotional enough reaction for Kyubey's notice. Wishing for something that clever would be the opposite of what Kyubey would seek out. He'd seek out girls that would want to cure their own/their loved ones ailments without thinking of a bigger picture solution.
 * There's a good reason for why many girls didn't wish for something like this.
 * The scene where Sayaka makes her wish also does not involve her actually saying it. This seems to imply that you have to be able to picture the wish in your mind. "Curing all cancer" or "World peace" is probably too abstract of a concept to picture. Most people would like for cancer to be cured, but don't really have a strong emotional involvement in it, unless you have a loved one suffering from it... but then the true wish would once again come down to saving that loved one. Not to mention that Sayaka asks earlier whether someone else can be the recipient of the wish, which also seems to imply that the wish can only have one recipient. Whether this is a subconscious limitation or an actual limitation of the wish remains to be seen.
 * Kyubey confirms this in Episode 10 when wouldn't work if she didn't have the resolve and visualization to make the wish. Also note that Kyubey tend to show up when the person is usually under emotional distress. Chances are, it would be difficult to make a wish clearly.
 * For that matter, what would happen if you found out about the whole thing beforehand and your wish was "I wish I never become a magical girl"? Logic Bomb?
 * Kyubey would probably just ignore it, since it'd basically amount to "leave me the hell alone."
 * Despair equal to the good things your wish makes. Congrats, you've just become a witch that gives tons of people cancer. Who said someone didn't make a wish like this already?
 * Hence why I said "putting aside the Awful Truth." My question was about why none of the girls considered it, not the results.(Also, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't give people cancer; it'd probably cause some other horrible disease, since cancer would no longer exist.)
 * I think this was actually answered indirectly in the finale. Kyubei says that Madoka has enough power that anything she wished could become true; this implies that the scope of the wish granted is limited by the Puella Magi's magical power. Very few people would have enough magic to do something that huge.
 * Madoka is also fairly specific about her wish and how she wants to accomplish it, thus avoiding being cheated out of her desired result.

Ouch, my Soul Gem!

 * Who thought it would be a good idea to put a Magical Girl's Soul Gem in a place where it could be so easily destroyed? As we saw in episode 10.
 * Well, most of the Magical Girls don't know that the Soul Gem
 * And I guess it's not like the force of magic that creates their costumes let's them decide where to put the Soul Gem. If Kyubey could decide that you'd think he'd at least put it somewhere where they can't be so easily hit,
 * Well,
 * One other question that remains is how exactly Magical Girls fight with their bodies being virtually destroyed, as Kyubey claims. Even if had kept her Soul Gem somewhere other her head, with her head bitten off, she would be blind and deaf, possibly paralyzed (with the loss of her eyes, ears and brain) even if she could use the Gem to control the rest of her body, and Charlotte would only have taken a few more seconds to devour the rest of her body (including the arms to use her   and the hat she stores them in), regardless of whether she had already eaten Mami's Soul Gem.
 * That's a fairly decisive case, but presumably, he's discussing things like gut wounds and other wounds to the vicinity of the center of mass. Painful, lethal, but if you cannot die and can suppress physical pain, there is actually very little there that would stop you from continuing to fight if it were lost, short of physical dissolution/dismemberment.
 * Homura's various attempts on Kyubey's life shows that he can resurrect himself by creating a new body to inhabit if his own one is destroyed. That said, it's not a stretch to think that he can easily create a new body for a Magical Girl if her old one is destroyed or damaged beyond repair especially since  They'd come up with ways to keep the girls up and running for as a possible.
 * Kyubey can't create new bodies for himself, it's more that he has an untold amount of bodies already running around. He is also a Hive Mind, so destroying one of his bodies isn't even an inconvenience (Gen Urobuchi compared it to pulling out a single strand of hair).

Oh dear, here she goes again

 * So, who knows how many loops ago,
 * As for why he's not shocked at Homura's appearance.
 * Kyubey is surprised at Homura's presence... at least, . He admits to Kyoko that Homura is "irregular", and he isn't sure where she got her powers. However,
 * As for why he's not shocked at Homura's appearance.
 * Kyubey is surprised at Homura's presence... at least, . He admits to Kyoko that Homura is "irregular", and he isn't sure where she got her powers. However,

Wait, Homura's is messing things up again.

 * Another question: the first time Homura

YMMV on Supporting Characters and QB

 * The fandom's treament of Hitomi, Kamijou, and Kyubey. Just because Sayaka is a main character does not mean that Kamijou is obligated to love her, even if she visited him a lot. Yes, it was rude not to let her know he was leaving the hospital, but how do we know that he knows her phone number? Plus, teenage boys aren't known for their tact anyway. On that note, Hitomi is not a man-stealing whore. She told Sayaka of her feelings for Kamijou beforehand, which is pretty damn courteous all things considered. If Sayaka had told her the truth about why she wouldn't confess, I think she'd hold off a bit. The fact that she's getting bashed for taking the initiative in pursuing Kamijou is rife with Unfortunate Implications. The fandom reviles Kyubey as a Complete Monster while ignoring the fact that his morality is more than a little different from ours. His kind has no emotions and is only concerned with staving off entropy. It shouldn't have been that surprising that he.
 * On that note, not-OP would like to add in the fandom's reaction to the idea that Hitomi was confessing Sayaka's feelings for Sayaka, rather than Hitomi's feelings for Hitomi, as if this is any less unfortunate than claiming Kamijo belongs to Sayaka. Basically all this is is a show-don't-tell version of the same thing, so why do people act like it's necessary to justify Hitomi's confession? Especially when the in universe reasons given rarely make much sense. . ..
 * I saw the Sayaka-Kyousuke relationship as something like the Gatsby-Daisy relationship in The Great Gatsby, in that Sayaka is idealizing him since she loves him and that he's not really all that. Yes, I understand that Kyousuke just got his arm paralyzed, which breaks his dream, but he does seem to be kind of unusually self-absorbed about it, even going on to believe that Sayaka is mocking him. Realistic or not, definitely not intended to be seen as your typical Love Interest. Kyousuke deciding not to tell Sayaka, the girl who had dutifully cared for him in the hospital, that he was released only confirmed my notion that Sayaka was pursuing someone who simply wasn't worth it.
 * More on Kyubey, even though he doesn't have emotions, he does have good intentions, even very admirable ones. He is, essentially, doing what needs to be done to save the universe. Even it was anything less, being a Well-Intentioned Extremist is explicitly stated on the article as something that prevents one from being a Complete Monster. Therefore, Kyubey is not a Complete Monster, and nowhere as bad as everyone says. I honestly can't believe I'm the only person who actually likes him.
 * Oh, I like him, I just don't trust him. He doesn't lie, but he has an annoying habit of never telling the complete truth unless he's pressed to do so. You always have to ask him the right questions, and as many as you can think of.
 * Same guy from two bullets above, what really bugs me is that how Fran from Franken Fran has all the makings of a Complete Monster, but the fans swear she can't possibly be evil because she doesn't understand human morality. Yet everyone hates Kyubey, who isn't even that bad, when he has the same thing going for him. Am I the only one who sees this as saying that having a Blue and Orange Morality is a perfectly fine excuse for commiting horriffic atrocities - but only if you're the protagonist?
 * Also, the timescale. The heat-death of the universe is going to happen, but not for aeons. Humans are at absolutely no risk of emerging to a dying cosmos, but they are at a very real risk of being consumed by the "waste" of Kyuubey's plans, even to the point of extinction. While everything he says in his lectures is true, it seems a lot like a handy cover story for a culture that has found a way to generate cheap, renewable power from the torment and suffering of other species. And an alien empire Powered by a Forsaken Child does veer into Complete Monster Dystopia territory. Still, YMMV.
 * Episode 11 confirms that I'm not saying he's not an antagonist. I'm just saying he's not a Complete Monster.
 * The big problem with the fandom treatment of Kyubey is that loving to hate him obscures the fact
 * Oh yeah. I can sorta understand the treatment of Kyoubey and maybe Kamijou, but the treatment of Hitomi? No fucking way. She's been called "whore", "slut", "man-stealer", etc., and she does not deserve it. As far as we can see, Hitomi does NOT have a single idea of what is going on: as far as she knows, her close friend who has the same feelings she does has simply disappeared, she has kept her own love for Kamijou under wraps, and now that Kamijou has returned to school sooner or later the two girls will have to face that fact. So Hitomi doesn't want to confess behind Sayaka's back, and tells her about what they should do. And for actually being honest to Sayaka and not "stealing" her chance to tell the guy they both like about herself, she is slutshamed and bashed and called "a bad friend"? W. T. F.

One: Kamijou does not belong to Sayaka even after she healed his arm, he still has free will and can date whoever he pleases, and who knows - he may have considered dating Sayaka as she did go to him first. In fact, Mami did tell Sayaka that it was not a good idea to make a wish for someone else (presumably recalling Kyouko) and that she should think twice. After all, one of the most major deconstructions of the series is how a Selfless Wish is just going to cause you even more suffering to the point that you cannot recover (and thus become an omnicidal Witch) because the equivalent hope now belongs to someone else. Two: Hitomi isn't stealing anyone's boyfriend, since Sayaka has not even confessed her feelings; she would've most likely accepted if Sayaka decided to do it anyway, as stated by the fact she was encouraging Sayaka to talk first, and openly said "You're my dear friend, so I don't want to steal your man.". If Sayaka didn't do it, 'it was NOT Hitomi's responsability anymore''.

I... I really don't like the huge "Nice Guy" (TM) vibes coming from the slutshaming/bashing of Hitomi for Sayaka's supposed sake, paired up with Sayaka's "babyfication" in which she's seen as a sort-of baby completely unable to take either good or bad decisions. (Reminds me way too much of the Snapefen that bash Lily Evans for daring to not take Snape's abusive behavior and go with someone else.) Sayaka doesn't deserve such treatment either, as it makes her look like a selfish bitch who can only think of Kamijou rather than the troubled and broken girl she truly ended up as. And it reaffirms horrible stereotypes about women: My problem is with the fandom's treatment of Sayaka Miki, actually. According to some, Sayaka is an affront to females in the way that she was totally focused on a man, however when Homura Akemi is totally focused on Madoka, it's fine because they're both girls? I've seen almost as much hate on Sayaka Miki as I have for Kyubey. As neither character wholly deserves this hate, it makes me upset.
 * if a female dares act assertively in regards to romance and not be selfless to the point of stupidity or martyrdom, she is to be hated and treated like a slut for not bowing to what is expected from her.
 * Double is it's a feminine woman who treats the tomboy like an equal and not like the tomboy's superior to her, since society thinks femininity in itself is horrible and offensive and that a feminine woman taking an active role is reprehensible.
 * Actually, it was just a running joke mocking our (by "our", I am referring to frequenters of a certain imageboard, including myself) own high standards for other people. Nobody actually meant anything by it.
 * If you mean that calling a girl slut or whore is a joke, it's still not funny and still not adequate. Specially when the girl is NOT a slut. And well, not to mention I've seen lots of people say it in all seriousness, saying Hitomi is a whore and a man-stealer for all of this.
 * I've never seen such hate for Hitomi. Hitomi is sort of a bystander who has nothing to do with the situation, and thusly can't be called a slut or man-stealer for pursuing someone she had a crush on. Especially since she told Sayaka she was going to pursue Kamijou. Kyubey, well I hated him while watching the show, but now that I've finished it, I don't feel as hateful towards him. I think it's more that I cannot comprehend his morality, just as he can't comprehend ours. Kamijou... I sort of understand. I mean it was obvious that Sayaka had feelings for him, but when I was that age I doubt I would have ever picked up on it. Justified.
 * Some characters in-universe question whether Sayaka's wish will have the effect she desires, or whether she truly wants it for his happiness, as opposed to wanting to win his love (admittedly which, given his emotional state and his reaction to her well-intentioned gift of music, is highly unlikely while he's still injured). By contrast, Homura wants to help Madoka, and is willing to be apart from Madoka if that is necessary to protect her from becoming a magical girl (whether it works is another matter, but Homura is arguably more honest and selfless than Sayaka).
 * The latter does not exclude the former. Sayaka wanted both, him being happy and his love. Note how she does not try to hurt Kyousuke and Hitomi even after being caught in her downward spiral and despite having at least one excellent opportunity to prevent their romance. The last episode confirms this selfless part of her wish. Homura's wish was similiar split into a selfless and selfish part. She wanted protect Madoka and not suffer from loneliness (Madoka was the only person who was close to her).
 * I'm going to have to say that his Blue and Orange Morality and Lack of Empathy do not make Kyubey's behavior excusable. Same way we consider The Sociopath to be the pinnacle of Complete Monster. It's still horrific, and whether he's capable of recognizing that himself or not, he clearly is capable of recognizing that the girls he contracts with find it horrific - and his response is to deliberately avoid telling them about it, and to generally mislead and manipulate them for the sake of his quota. I imagine most of the hate for him comes not from the fact that he thinks it's okay to drive teenaged girls over the Despair Event Horizon and turn them into witches as a source of energy, but that he's actively deceptive and manipulative about it (and "he doesn't actually lie" carries no weight when the result is the same as if he'd lied). Either way, not understanding human emotions and morality doesn't make him any less scary or dangerous, and it doesn't mean he's not ultimately an antagonist. I personally find him very much a love-to-hate character whose fascinating in his freakishness.
 * I would like to point out that he did say something along the lines of there being 6 bilion of us and we get so upset over one person. He has a good point. In fact we look at it the same with animals we harvest for meat. The majority of people don't even think about the fact that just now somewhere some creature became an orphan. I am not saying we should because this would be too troublesome but if you look at it that way we are just cows to him. Why should it matter to something that is very well possibly a higher life form if one little ant died in order to save the entire universe?
 * Here are my thoughts
 * 1) More exploration of Hitomi's feelings would have helped, such as hinting at her feelings for him all along, rather than introducing them just as Sayaka is undergoing her own personal crisis, showing the dialogue in the actual confession and perhaps a scene with Hitomi and Kyosuke to establish more that Hitomi also legitimately cares for Kyosuke. It would have made her love for him more sympathetic, rather than a device to essentially force Sayaka to decide between doing something she believes she cannot do and allowing something to happen that she does not want to happen, leading to her downfall. Despite this, I believe that Hitomi did the most reasonable thing that someone who knew what she did could do, and she's considerably kinder to her friend/rival than most of the other people I've seen in love triangles.
 * 2) As for Kyosuke, it's a major oversight on his part to leave the hospital without telling Sayaka, but it's possible he hoped to see her in school. He's also oblivious to how his arm got healed, but given what happened to Kyouko, it's understandable why Sayaka doesn't tell him about the wish and she may also not want to burden him with the knowledge.
 * 3) Kyubey may see a handful of lives as a small sacrifice compared to the 6 billion humans on earth, and I find his livestock analogy hard to argue with, but he also is willing to let 6 billion people die if he's harvested enough energy from the Earth, which could indicate that he doesn't care about human life period. There are also times when he's pointlessly cruel or manipulative beyond what could be considered necessary, such as when he presses down on Sayaka's Soul Gem to cause her pain after she has had a striking lesson on how Magical Girl bodies work, and when he lies about the possibility of returning Sayaka to normal, most likely causing Kyouko to die in the process and leaving Homura to stand alone against Walpurgis Night, presumably with the intention of forcing Madoka to become a magical girl.
 * I think you have to look at the bigger picture:
 * I'm quite sure he doesn't care about human life. We can assume there are TONS of planets in the universe of madoka that have life on them some definitely more advanced than our own and kyuubey did say that we would still be in caves without them so his species probably views us as playthings. They are essentially gods for the human race and as thus we are like an energy machine so when we had fulfilled our purpose what point is there in continuing to use a machine after its purpose is done?
 * I agree that his pushing on Sayaka's soul gem might have been a little over the top, but I don't agree that he lied about being able to return her to normal. He never said that they could return her to normal. He said it was unlikely and nothing of the sort had ever happened. However, magical girls defy logic. What he basically said was an over complicated version of "I don't know" with hints of "probably not".
 * At first, like many others, I hated Hitomi for "stealing" Kamijou away from Sayaka (tangentally Sayaka, Hitomi, and Kamijou were my least favorite characters in the whole anime that order from least to most hated, but I digress). But then reading others comments that she didn't steal Kamijou cuz he didn't rightfully belong to Sayaka and such I changed my tune...But then I remembered Hitomi didnt even seem to try to make any moves until AFTER he got discharged. That combined with the serious borderline monotone and combative tone(? I think. To me she sounded like she was forcing sayakas hand at last second), still qualifies her for "bitch" status to me, though somewhat saved when she realized Sayaka is dead was partially her fault. (Locked Out of the Loop be damned.)
 * In fairness to Hitomi, she has obligations that probably might make visiting Kyousuke difficult. The same day Sayaka first mentions doing things for Kamijou, Hitomi has to go to like, a tea ceremony thing (or something, I forgot), and Sayaka makes a comment about how being a high class lady has a lot of commitments and responsibilities.
 * Not to mention, let's be honest here. According to the nurse, Sayaka was with Kamijou almost all the time after school, apparently leaving only at sundown. (And it's surprising that nobody likened her to a Stalker with a Crush or something in the hospital - Sayaka is very much NOT an entitled and whiny Nice Girl-tm, but people ain't mindreaders.) Would you like to go visit the dude/dudette you care for while knowing that somebody else with similar feelings is there, and possibly has been there for far longer than you? Specially considering that you have very limited time to drop by as well, and that the other person is dear to you too. This is a no-win situation.
 * And yeah, it's canon that Hitomi comes from a rich and very strict/traditional upper-class family, and as such she had to go to after school classes: tea ceremony, Japanese dance, ikebana, etc. Hitomi herself complains about it since it doesn't let her concentrate in her homework or her friendships. So yeah, can't fully blame her for that one.

Series Ending Headscratchers

 * Did anyone ever say that Sayaka sacrificed herself specifically so that Kyousuke would make his audition on time? (Not that I have a problem with this, I just want clarification). This seems to get passed off as fact a lot, but the only thing I clearly remember was actually said was that it had to do with Kyousuke in some manner, which may or may not have to do with the audition (for all we know Sayaka's ghost could have gone back in time).
 * No, Sayaka sacrificed herself because
 * Right, but something happened
 * Sayaka
 * Last episode: If Neon Genesis Evangelion taught me anything, it's "as long as you are alive, you can be happy." Those pour souls don't even get a second chance... when
 * Why is this bad? While you have a chance to be happy "as long as you're alive", you can't make this a blanket statement to mean "if you ever die you will be doomed to unhappiness forever", especially when everyone dies. Death is a natural part of life- in a way, it gives Magical Girls back some of their humanity.
 * You'e misunderstanding what exactly

Oh, and the demons don't come from the magical girls. They form ex nihilo from what Homura called "distortions" in the world.
 * So nothing changed in the end? Besides the girls feeling guilty about becoming witches, no one knows where demons come up from (they said distortions in the world, but it seems more like grief just manifesting into demons). Girls are still dying all across the world from sadness. The only thing different is it benefits Kyuubey to keep the girls alive instead of having them die. But even then, they still will face sorrow. How is this a good ending?
 * It isn't. It's bittersweet at best. Specifically, the scene with Mami, Kyoko, and Homura right after Sayaka dies in the last and permanent universe (as well as Homura's voiceover afterwards) is there to tell you that things are NOT good, and there's still a lot of suffering, regret, and sacrifice. The only difference is that they won't become witches, so at least there is some measure of comfort and the promise of mercy at the end of a magical girl's journey, rather than ultimate despair and the loss of identity.
 * Not to mention having the Incubators purify Soul Gems themselves rather than using a witch's Grief Seed removes the need for Puella Magi to compete for them which is what prevented them for being to form teams and even led some girls to try to kill each other. Removing this competition allows Puella Magi to be able to band together against demons which not only increases the chances of winning meaning they're less likely to be killed but also allows for close friendships to be formed which would have been nearly impossible in the old universe. In the Retcon we see Homura, Mami and Kyouko together as a team mourning Sayaka after she had just performed a Heroic Sacrifice which is different from their earlier interactions in the old universe. After watching The Power of Friendship get constantly get pounded to the ground throughout the series it was nice to see it get reconstructed in the Retcon.
 * How do we know they don't just become demons instead? Instead of one big witch, the grief is put together and split up to form demons. Kyuubey says that no one knows why Magical Girls disappear and there is no real answer to where demons appear.
 * Because the show itself explicitly states it. Explaining how this happens (and I don't mean "vaguely implied" or "hinted at," but the characters outright say it) is the entire point of episode 12. But to state it again: Madoka purifies the magical girls' souls and takes them away when they've reached the limits of despair. We see her do this. We listen to characters explaining this. But after the creation of the new universe, no one is aware of Madoka's existence except for Homura. That's why no one knows why magical girls disappear, because they don't know that an existence beyond their awareness is saving them at the last second.
 * Eliminating one injustice, even a major one, does not suddenly make the world a perfect place. Neither should it. But it does make the world appreciably better. Pre-retcon being a magical girl meant inevitably forfeiting your soul in exchange for a miracle. You could not even take solace in good deeds you might do as a magical girl, because you crimes as a witch will compensate for them. Post-retcon it is just enlisting for a dangerous job. And you still get your miracle, plus immortality until killed.
 * None of the girls die of sadness in the new world. Listen to Madoka's wish again, and keep in mind that everything she says after Kyubey interjects is also part of the wish.
 * This is directly contradicted by the scenes of Madoka taking the Girls away when they would have become Witches. She hasn't removed despair from the equation; if she had, the girls would never disappear, they'd just live until their soul gems were destroyed and they died. That we explicitly see Madoka taking away girls who've fallen into despair and are about to become Witches proves that yes, they do still die of sadness in the new world. They just get to pass on in the comforting arms of Madokami, instead of becoming Witches.

I doubt they can "retire," though. Seems to me that simply maintaining the link between the empty body and the Soul Gem (or even just keeping the body "alive") uses a portion of the latter's magic, so they're forced to fight at some point to keep the Gem from corrupting completely. That's the catch of the wish --if they didn't have to fight Witches, then what's the point of the contract?
 * Under the new system, would it be possible for a Puella Magi to live until old age? Because, under the old system, it seemed to me that Puella Magi were really fated to die young, because either shattering your soul gem due to despair or some accident, or using up magical energy were bound to happen in a short span of time. But if it's possible for a Puella Magi to live a long life, then that raises all sorts of new questions: they obviously can't do this forever, so what happens? (Can they even age physically? Can they just "retire"?)
 * Even in the original timeline, they don't age. Their body just "stops" once their Soul Gem is extracted, becoming more of a puppet than a self-sustaining organism. The reason the girls in the main cast all died young was because they were thrust into the responsibility with little emotional preparation and they made mistakes while in the frontlines --Homura, OTOH, survived lots and lots of battles without corrupting because she was eased into the role by Madoka and Mami (both in combat, and psychologically.) And in the end,, so yes, it's possible for a Magical Girl to essentially live forever if she takes care of her body and her Soul Gem's regular purification. For all we know, the girls that had already lived for hundreds of years, but they had the same appearance as when their bodies stopped growing.
 * Okay, this is entirely speculation. In fact, it's Jossed speculation, considering we have confirmation by way of the production notes on Roberta that magical girls do age.
 * Besides the fact that a secret society of immortal girls might get uncovered someday (especially if you consider that they seem to stay in the same territory), they were never expected to live that long, anyways. Giving them anti-aging-magic is probably a waste of time.


 * If a Magical Girl with darken soul gem will be saved by Madoka, what happen to those girls whose soul gems got destroyed? Does they simply cease to exist all together? Or they can still go with Madoka to Vahalla?
 * All Magical Girls go to Valhalla. Knowing Madoka, all souls period would go to her heaven if she has the ability to do so.
 * In the new system, magical girls fight demons instead of witches. Where do these demons come from?
 * They're described as being born from the fluctuations of the world. Basically, they come into existence to tie up the paradox caused by Madoka's wish. They have to fight something, or else why would all these girls become Puella Magi?
 * We know that Witches fed on "grief." This "grief" was a something, so presumably with no predators it became sentient.
 * Witches don't feed on grief, they're born of it, and don't so much 'feed' as 'fucking kill people'. The demons aren't sentient grief, but are personifications of the Time Paradox according to Word Of God.
 * I see it like this, as a law, the Hope and Dispair created by a wish has to be zero sum. Normally, this manifests as the girl's Witch. However, madoka's wish also stopped her own witch. The demons were created by the "dispair equivilent to the end of the universe" QB mentioned.
 * What happens to the Soul Gem after the retcon? Does it still function as a Soul Jar? It does still require the corruption to be drained by Grief Seed afterall.
 * We may assume it's still a Soul Jar.


 * , why does Mami still talk about being a Puella Magi like it's a bad thing? A)  more than likely talked with her, which means she'd have had the chance to change her wish and save her parents; if the car crash is an unavoidable point in her life regardless of the time line, I can understand her still being a little resentful, but talking about how it's "best for them to disappear" is a tad overboard. B) In the timeline that scene was from, Mami knows about the Puella Magi system (Homura had told them that , even if she didn't believe her until she saw it personally). Now their hope doesn't bring despair to the world and they're all going to die happily for their wishes in the end. Given how the circumstances regarding their wishes, fighting, and   changed, why is she so cynical?
 * I got the feeling that However ignoring that, she probably   However, remember that she was still really lonely as a magical girl, and it was still probably a rather depressing job that doesn't allow much for human relationships. . ..
 * Also while Puella Magi dont become witches, they're still liches (i.e. undead magic users whose bodies are basically meat puppets controlled by their consciousness which now reside in their Soul Gem. With their bodies no longer alive, this would idicate that they can no longer age preventing the Puella Magi from being able to form close social ties with normal humans since they would outlive anyone they know. Like the Cullens in Twilight, a Puella Magi would have no choice but to wander around endlessly since staying in one place for too long would mean drawing the attention of people who'd notice this girl wasnt aging.
 * Why are so many people convinced that Madoka actually ? It wasn't even implied in the anime.
 * Actually, Madoka says something along the lines of
 * I thought it was pretty clear that


 * Originally, emotional energy was harvested when magical girls turned into witches, right? So how how do Incubators collect energy now that magical girls no longer turn into witches?
 * Grief Cubes, the equivalent of Grief Seeds. Kyubey even comments that Homura's Witch world would be much more efficient.

Magical Girls of the Past



 * Anne Frank: "I wish for the founding of Israel." ":3" Israel comes as a result of World War Two. OR "I wish to be famous." ":3" Anne Frank becomes famous....through World War Two.
 * More likely: "I want the Jewish people to be saved."
 * Both are a bit too grand. My guess: when her family was being hunted, she wished for a place to hide her family. Her despair horizon probably came when the nazis found said hiding place and took everyone.
 * Joan of Arc probably wanted to help fight for her country/become a warrior of her faith. Kyubey gave her the potential only to be tried as a witch and canonized years later.
 * My take on all of the above:
 * Cleopatra: In desperation the land that adopted her, Cleopatra wished that the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt would continue, no matter who was at it's helm. Against all odds, she essentially leads for some time and holds the dynasty together, bearing Marc Antony many children and stabilizing the state - but in the end, the dynasty only truly survives... As a glorified province of Rome, stripped of all it's former independence.
 * Jehanne D'Arc: At first, she needed no wish. With her belief in her God and her skill at tactics and oratory, she resisted Incubator until the very end. She was caught, however - and her final wish was simple - I want France to remain separate from England, independent and free. And so it does - however, the independence from the former Angevin family comes at a price. French exceptionalism leads the conquered to turn to conquerors, becoming harsh overlords of the European stage for roughly four hundred years, when finally the British - not 'England' for purposes of the wish - become a world power. If that isn't enough humiliation, her charred corpse is puppeteered into Witch-form as a symbol by the Vichy French, which leads us nicely from her despair horizon to...
 * Anne Frank: A simple wish. I want my family to be safe. Of course a simple wish is often precisely what Incubator is looking for, and through that wish, however granted, Anne's many other wishes - I want to be happy, I want to be loved, I want to grow older - become impossible in the cruelest ways possible.
 * Emperor Himiko: I use the term Emperor because in no way was her position subservient to any other. Himiko's wish - that the land of Japan would survive the threat of the great nations across the sea. And so it did - in a manner of speaking. However, Koshinto - Shinto in it's purest form - no longer existed in the majority, replaced by the emotion-culling beliefs of Mahayana Buddhism, the societal divisions of Confucian thought, the subjugation and assimilation of the Yamato and Ainu peoples by today's modern Japanese, who were likely descendents of Chinese colonists, and the fact that no woman in Japanese history would ever after bear a position as socially significant as her (yet). Possibly because she had such high spiritual energy(?), I think in many ways the destruction of Himiko's wish is fantastically cruel.
 * Emperor Himiko: I use the term Emperor because in no way was her position subservient to any other. Himiko's wish - that the land of Japan would survive the threat of the great nations across the sea. And so it did - in a manner of speaking. However, Koshinto - Shinto in it's purest form - no longer existed in the majority, replaced by the emotion-culling beliefs of Mahayana Buddhism, the societal divisions of Confucian thought, the subjugation and assimilation of the Yamato and Ainu peoples by today's modern Japanese, who were likely descendents of Chinese colonists, and the fact that no woman in Japanese history would ever after bear a position as socially significant as her (yet). Possibly because she had such high spiritual energy(?), I think in many ways the destruction of Himiko's wish is fantastically cruel.


 * Wait a second, just realized: Magical Girl or not, one would assume that Cleopatra still seduced Mark Anthony and produced Caesarion, Alexander Helios, Cleopatra the Second and Ptomley the 16th. Now, as we all know, becoming a Magical Girl turns you a corpse. So even though she could most certainly have sex (sucks to be the accidental necrophile, eh Anthony? ), how in the name of Madoka would Cleopatra be able to give birth to ONE, much less FOUR children when her body is incapable of sustaining and producing life anymore?
 * Even though it's never outright stated, I think we are to assume that a Puella Magi's body still has the same bodily functions as a normal body; eat, sleep etc. If not, you'd think someone would have figured out the whole Soul Jar deal by now. Also, both Kyouko and Mami are shown to be younger in the flashbacks to when they become PM. So ,for all intents and purposes, a PM = normal body with normal bodily functions with the exception of not being able to die. Wait, does this mean a PM can die of old age?
 * Probably not. Kyouko's life experiences, and the fact that she can't remember how old she is, imply that after they hit a certain age, they stop aging. But yes, a Puella Magi's body is only a corpse if something happens to the Soul Gem.

Unsorted Headscratchers

 * So Madoka, being a little weirded out at the end of episode 8, decides to go look for Sayaka, whose current status she knows nothing about. So where do we find her walking around in the beginning of episode 9? On train tracks closed off by barbed wired fences. Makes sense.
 * Those train tracks might have been the site of a tragedy or something, and we know witches love to spawn in those kinds of places.
 * Wait, if there was a tragedy near a train... and ...
 * I don't get that... can someone explain that to me, please?
 * I'll try to give my thoughts. Witches never seemed to spawn in areas where many can see its barrier form (this could just be for plot-convenience though), so Madoka likely figured Sayaka was witch-hunting and looked in areas that a witch would typically spawn.
 * So we've seen that Homura . We also know that firearms and explosives deal enough damage to witches to kill them. So why doesn't It seems weird she doesn't even try to abuse that more.
 * I just assumed that
 * Answered in episode 11.
 * Which leads us to how could she
 * Obviously, she put it into her shield.
 * At which point in time did Homerun find out Kyuubey's real name was ? I really can't put in my head that Kyuubey just went ahead and told her for the hell of it. So either she is a very smart girl and figured it out herself, or she has indeed than the ones shown. Is there any other convincing way it could have happened?
 * Same goes for how she found out Soul Gems are . She says she knew it when questioned in Episode 7, and her response hints that she knew it in, but the only thing we ever see her discover is that.
 * It was probably revealed . However,.
 * In Episode 11,
 * Countless for him. All he knows is what Homura told him herself or what he could conclude from the informations he had. He has no real idea how many times Homura traveled through time.
 * Homura did seem to mention that her cold personality came from how the people she saw die were too many to count..
 * A relatively small one, but how did Kyosuke know the way to Hitomi's house? Since she said she kept her feelings for Kyosuke a secret, I can accept that she'd been visiting him at the hospital like Sayaka was and just asked him not to tell, but he wasn't in school very long between being discharged and her confessing to him.
 * It's probably reasonable to assume that Kamijou attended school with them prior to his accident.
 * When Sayaka started ranting about how Homura supposedly, why the hell didn't Madoka just tell her that that wasn't the case? It's not like there was anything stopping her?
 * Madoka may not have realized that Sayaka actually had a good reason to think that; Madoka was stunned by Sayaka's ranting and didn't really recover in time to explain.
 * A moment ago, Madoka thanked Homura for saving them showing that she knew Homura fought Charlotte as a rescue and not to collect a valuable grief seed. She probably assumed Sayaka thought the same way too and was shocked when she found out otherwise.
 * Post-episode 3, Mami's dead. She's not around to snap and kill everyone. Homura could have tried to tell the truth about magical girls to Madoka and Sayaka. Sure, it may not have worked, but it would be worth a try. Even better, she could have done it in front of Kyubey; they'd ask him, and he wouldn't deny it. Is Homura that dedicated to being secretive?
 * She just doesn't believe that outright telling people will lead to belief, and has the evidence of at least one loop where it didn't help, which is why she's being all mysterious and hinty.
 * Assuming that she's got through more time loops than shown, chances are she probably did try that but failed.
 * In one of the previous time loops, Sayaka was the one who spoke out in opposition to teaming up with Homura, complaining that she might get caught in one of her explosions, and seemed to distrust her from the moment they met in class in the current timeline.
 * Incorrect. Sayaka starts distrusting Homura not until after Madoka told her about Homura's cryptic warning and later Homura seemingly threatened Madoka.
 * As for telling the Awful Truth in front of Kyubey, it probably wouldnt work since he'd likely turn it to his advantage. Note, while he cannot lie or tell any false statements, it doesnt stop him from twisting statements or withholding information in order to achieve a desired result.  If Madoka and Sayaka were to ask him, he could answer that Homura would say or do anything to prevent Madoka from contracting out of fear of her power which would be the truth. They'd think that Homura was the one lying and wouldnt listen to her then.
 * Still, Homura does come off as fairly callous in the wake of Mami's death. She could at least have read Sayaka and Madoka's reactions and made it clear that it was for their benefit (even if she's only truly interested in Madoka), and this would have made her easier to trust, since Madoka finds to be quite cold even as Kyubey turns out to have kept more and more information from her and the other magical girls.
 * Dont forget that before all this happened, Homura was orginally a Shrinking Violet due to a long period of hospitalization which made her uncomfortable around people (Madoka was the only friend she had). While her battle skills have been improved by the Groundhog Day Loop, her people skills are still lacking, not helped by the fact that the rest of the cast keep dying around her despite her efforts.
 * Homura's goal was  being callous and blunt served that goal. She wanted to put the idea in both Madoka and Sayaka's heads that.
 * How exactly would two Magical Girls handle Walpurgis Night better than one? Based on what we've seen, the stuff Homura throws at it seems far beyond what a 'normal' Madoka and Mami could have done in the first timeline; likewise, Kyouko wouldn't have made much of an addition either.
 * Homura being stronger than Madoka is simply not true. Remember that Madoka still managed to defeat Walpurgis alone at the very first timeline. Having more numbers is always an addition. Sure two men facing a lion barehanded probably wouldn't produce a win, but would you rather fight that lion alone or with another comrade? We don't exactly know all of Kyouko's powers either as she wasn't fighting her best when facing Sayaka; at the very least Kyouko could have protected Homura from the fodder enemies Walpurgis was sending out.
 * Did Madoka.
 * She did...
 * The thing about Madoka's
 * You are overthinking things.
 * Well, what I can say (based mostly on eps 10 and 11) is that:
 * For that matter, nature is helplessness. Maybe it's simply impossible to do with only one person, because that person is "helpless" - Homura can't win, but Homura + mouse that noms on 's ear can. Madoka breaks this by being Madoka.
 * I thought Sayaka was Madoka's best friend,  That poor girl just can't get a break.
 * It could be that because in those, Madoka
 * Madoka only calls her best friend after she becomes
 * That's true, Madoka has just realized how hard Homura has been fighting for her sake, as she says immediately before making that declaration.
 * So why is Kyouko around in the third timeline? In the only other timeline where she appears (the current one), it's a result of Mami dying, but Mami is alive and kicking in the third timeline.
 * I think that it was more than Mami that made her that interested in that place. Notice that Sayaka got contracted in that timeline? My bet is that Kyouko was wandering around the world, possibly looking for a new area to hunt witches. While she was passing through that place, she saw Sayaka.You can probably tell what happens next...
 * Don't forget, Mami, Kyouko, and Homura all knew about Walpurgis Night, and the scene where indicates they had already talked about it. It's likely they had called her in to help against it; that would be in character for Mami, and Walpurgis was the one witch Kyouko had shown an interest in killing without mentioning a Grief Seed.
 * First point of divergence, when Homura shows up. Second point of divergence, Madoka. What we're seeing is the world where Mami "lost it" in episode 10, but now she has hope (and Madoka). In "mainline", Mami and Kyouko are in the waiting room (or maybe lounge) for the next world (notice how Kyouko just pops into existence when the camera isn't looking). The only constant in the universe(s) (besides Madoka) is Homura (who created many of them if not all). She's doing the whole eternal champion thing.
 * So do the Yakuza and the Godzilla Defense Force ever start noticing that their weapons stockpiles are running suspiciously thin? Does Homura keep every weapon she's ever stored in Hammerspace for all the timelines like a New Game+ scenario since I'm pretty sure that all those RPGs in the ending would be missed by those who owned them in the first place.
 * You're probably right, but the show isn't called Yakuza Chronicles: The Missing Arms Stockpile.
 * Even if they notice, if their weapons just disappeared and even security cameras didn't record any more than "puff, they're gone", they can't do anything about it. And since it's a massive pile of weaponry, they wouldn't think a schoolgirl is responsible for stealing them.
 * It would be fairly noticeable if Homura obtains her weaponry in the short window of time (albeit which for her, can last as long as she needs it to) while the locker is open, as she seems to, instead of finding some way to pick the lock.
 * How do the magical girls know of Walpurgis's existence before she is born? In Timeline 1, Mami even says "Kaname should become a pro before Walpurgis Night." But unlike Homura, they don't have the benefit of knowing its nature or knowing when it's going to appear, or even that it will appear at all.
 * Any decent magic girls already knew about Walpurgis, as Kyoko shown an intrest in fighting it without Homura having to explain what it is. As for Mami's comment, she might have known there will be a Walpurgis, but might not have known it would be so soon and it would hit their city.
 * Well, yes, we know they did know there was a Walpurgis. But where did they find out that she's coming? Did Kyubey tell them? How did he find out?
 * The witch's card says that stories about Walpurgis Night have been "handed down through history", so either some Puella Magi have told each other (trying to form teams against it?) or Kyuubey is telling. He can sense when witches are about to hatch. He most likely didn't tell Madoka in later timelines so that when Walpurgis did appear, she'd be overwhelmed and more easily forced into making a wish.
 * Hold on a second, Madoka supposedly has the a shit load of power, right? and Kyubey has to grant any wish. so what would happen if Madoka wished for A: Witches not to exist, or B: kyubey not to exist? Would he (be able to) grant that wish?
 * Isn't A exactly what she wished for? And Kyubey said her wish was "treason against the wish itself" but he was forced to grant it anyway. The latter point would have also been granted as later in the episode  so Kyubey would have likely been able to grant it, but Madoka isn't spiteful enough to make that wish. She knows the incubators have been a boon to human civilization and they are trying to do what they think is right. So she reworked their game rather than erasing them all.
 * Kyubey is a telepath who has no problem with entering girls' minds, as revealed in episode 2 and further hammered in during episode 11. (It also can just outright edit contents of their brains, as there is no other possible explanation for Madoka's temporary loss of all memories of Homura in episode 8). We can safely bet that it mindscans all the girls regularly. Even if it has to grant a wish - which is not actually confirmed - it will know if a wish is going to be harmful to the Incubators, and simply won't be there to grant it. Particularly true in Madoka's case, as it visited her right before she went to save Homura, when Madoka almost certainly knew what she's going to wish for. The idea that the ending didn't go Exactly As Planned by Kyubey is based on the assumption that Kyubey ever told the girls the true extent of its plans. This is far from a given, when we talk about a being notorious for omitting parts of the truth it isn't directly asked about. As about its motive for changing the system, even assuming that the Incubators have no ethics whatsoever, consider, that its race is supposed to think and plan forward on the scale of billions of years and most likely intends to exist for infinity. However, their current way of generating energy from nothing is inherently risky. Even if the risk of accidentally producing a witch capable of actually threatening the Incubators is infintesimal, it is not zero. It cannot be assumed to be zero, because they are playing with power they do not fully undestand. The main timeline Kyubey should be particularly aware of this, as he has an example of a magical girl capable of screwing with space-time on the universal scale right before him. In fact, had Madoka made any other wish, the entire universe would have been in in peril. Of course her actual wish also meant that the main-timeline Kyubey is going to cease to exist and be recreated, so at the moment of wishmaking itself it is distressed (unless it just failed to pick the correct tone of voice, or wanted Madoka to think she won). Once the wish is done, it becomes calm and contemplative again, even as it witnesses literal end of the universe.
 * This is probably just an example of Did Not Do the Research, but why is it that Kyouko's father was allowed to continue to use the church building after the (presumably Roman Catholic) church excommunicated him for his "heretical" ideas? Wouldn't the church heirarchy have simply appointed a new priest for the church in his place instead of letting him take over the building and scattering their parishoners elsewhere?
 * Privately owned?
 * Maybe the ruined church was built or acquired after he got his followers from Kyouko's wish.
 * This troper always assumed that Fr. Sakura simply wasn't a Catholic priest, but a Christian minister, given that he is married with children (you know, Catholic priests have that celibacy thing). Also, there are a lot of Christian denominations with different ideas about Christ and Christianity so him having a 'different' approach in his church (thus his own Christian denomination) is not so strange.
 * So, exactly when does Oriko Magica take place before the anime. It was pretty easy to follow, until Homura showed up. The whole time travel element to the story kind of screws with my attempts to place it on a timeline.
 * Well, if we assume there are only five timelines overall before Madoka's wish, then it's either Timeline 4 or Timeline 5 because it's not Moemura. Since she and Madoka are on chatty-friendly terms with Hitomi and Sayaka, it's not Timeline 5. If we have 5+ timelines and a buttload were simply not shown, then somewhere between four and five. On the OTHER HAND, the promo of the manga describes it as "the paths of Magical Girls never meant to cross", so it's possible this "Oriko Timeline" is entirely aberrant. Does this help?
 * Homura's heart disease. Common Knowledge takes that she cured that with her eyes in the 4th loop, but I doubt it. Restorative magic implies restore the state to a previous point of time; and Homura's heart disease is likely to be congenital, as the case usually be, so there's no such a previous time point that her heart can possible be without deformity...
 * She's a Magical Girl AKA a fucking immortal zombie/lich thing that is pretty much a magically animated meat puppet. She doesn't even NEED her heart anymore.
 * Your answer does not align well with the fact she still needs to use the Soul Gem to cure her eyes. Based on what you said, her eyes should have been healed when she got the Soul Gem. In my opinion, even Soul Gem would heal injuries and attenuate pain, it cannot force the holder to go beyond the physical constraints of the holder.
 * The functionality of your eyes has nothing to do with being able to live. All Kyubey told us that their new state does is make it so they can regenerate from any injury, and will remain alive as long as their Soul Gem exists. The way you're trying to interpret things is purely fanfiction and has no basis in anything. The girls are zombies. They don't really need any part of their bodies because magic will keep them going one way or another; on top of this, it also filters out their pain to a degree that they can shrug it off for the most part (or not feel pain entirely at the cost of body-soul reaction lag).
 * Zombies Liches still need eyes to see through. As we witnessed with Sayaka, just because the girls are liches doesn't mean they don't need their bodies. The heart disease isn't going to threaten her because the implied regenerative properties of the Soul Gem should prevent it from being able to progress any further. Her eyes are actively inhibiting her ability to fight, and have a previous state they can be restored to that would resolve this problem, so she resolved it. They're two completely separate issues.
 * "Fixing" the eyes of a person who requires glasses at a young age isn't a matter of repairing damage or restoring to an earlier point; the eye trouble is far more likely to be genetic than the heart condition. Meanwhile her athletic performance in the first episode implies that she's at pretty much the peak of human ability. I interpreted taking off the glasses to mean that she'd altered her body to optimal functionality, removing eye conditions, heart troubles, any trace diseases, and any excess fat, and increasing muscle mass, immune response, and nerve conductivity all at once. Heart condition or no, someone who just got out of the hospital without serious physical therapy isn't going to be setting any region-wide records without magical alteration.
 * In episode 2, Mami explained that if you didn't clean your Soul Gem, it will become dull and dirty. No one was the least bit of curious to ask what would happen after that? Did everyone just assume that you can't use your magic anymore? All of this could have been avoided if they just asked the question that should have came hand-in-hand with that explanation.
 * As a viewer, I had assumed that you just couldn't use magic anymore, so I'm guessing that's what the girls thought too.
 * I wondered the same thing for the longest time. The fact that a Grief Seed of all things, cleans the darkness and can USE (to regenerate the witch) when a Soul Gem can't, says a lot to me.
 * Remember, back in the early part of the story, the girls along with some of viewers thought that they were in a regular Magical Girl show with the Soul Gem as a Transformation Trinket and Kyubey as the helpful Mentor Mascot recruiting them to Save the World from evil monsters. The girls most likely did think that the Soul Gem's brightness served as a mana meter and that they wouldnt be able to use magic once it got dark. If it was life-threatening, then surely Kyubey would warn them about it.  Once the Awful Truth about the Soul Gems came out though, that definitely should have sent alarm bells ringing into the girls' heads, considering that it's their SOULS that has been dimming all this time, yet rather than further inquire into this they wait until
 * In episode 11, we learn that Sayaka has been missing since the twelfth. What. According to this, it would mean that:
 * April 4th: Sayaka contracts with Kyubey.
 * 12th: I'll assume "missing" to mean that Sayaka stopped showing up at home for some reason, yet continues to go to school.
 * 16th: Sayaka fights Kyoko.
 * 18th: Sayaka finds out that Kyosuke was released from the hospital. She almost visits him at home. The truth about soul gems is revealed. Sayaka later confronts Kyubey. Sayaka has been "missing" for six days at this point, so this scene most likely does not take place at her home.
 * 19th: Sayaka skips school. It is implied that this is the first time she does so. Sayaka has been "missing" for a week at this point, so she is not at home, yet Kyoko finds her. Where is Sayaka staying?
 * 20th: Sayaka returns to school and Hitomi delivers her ultimatum. At night, Sayaka battles Elsa Maria.
 * 21st: Madoka searches for Sayaka, and learns that Sayaka has not returned home since the last night. The fact that Sayaka has already been missing for nine days to begin with is not mentioned. What.
 * 27th or 28th: Sayaka becomes a witch.
 * 28th or 29th, the following day: Kyoko sacrifices herself to kill Sayaka.
 * 29th or 30th, the following day: Sayaka's body is found in a hotel room most likely procured by Kyoko after Sayaka became a witch. Sayaka's body is buried.
 * It might be a mistranslation of "missing for twelve days", which would fit if she disappeared some time in the night of the 18th and is found on the 30th.
 * The translation I saw said the 22nd, which fits in well. I think the linked calendar is just misinformed?
 * (OP) So it's a simple mistake due to a mistranslation. That makes sense.
 * (OP again) It seems that the linked timeline has been altered since this Headscratcher was written. Now Sayaka disappearing on the 12th makes perfect sense.
 * A defeated Witch drops a Grief Seed. The Grief Seed is a corrupted version of the Soul Gem the Witch had as a Puella Magi. Kyoko claims that Familiars can "mature" into Witches, wherupon they too will drop Grief Seeds. Where would the Soul Gems for these Grief Seeds come from? Soul Cloning? For that matter, what would happen if a male familiar, like Oktavia's Holger, matured? Would it become a Witch?
 * Based on the information presented to us: biological reproduction with a magical twist. A Familiar is a newborn Witch. There are no "male" or "female" Familiars, as Witches reproduce asexually. They may look like what we would think of as male or female, but they have no gender. Their Grief Seeds come from the same place that the souls for any other form of new life comes from.
 * Familiars grow up into perfect clones of their mother Witch. Therefore they grow Grief Seeds identical to the Grief Seeds of their mother. Since they mature by killing a buttload of people, it's apparently forged directly out of the grief of it's victims. Conversely, a Witch's Grief Seed becomes more valuable (able to absorb more grief) by killing people, so it seems a Witch can empty it's Grief Seed. It's all about how hope and despair have to balance out.
 * Is the whole show a vicious Take That at Pretty Cure? It's very similar in formula to it out of any other Magical Girl show, just...much darker. But then again, one of the VA's from that is in here, so... (I haven't seen past the first two eps of Magica, so I could be wrong.)
 * It's a Take That at the entire genre; it's just that Pretty Cure is just so goddamn formulaic that it pretty much hits every note that Madoka is deconstructing.
 * No, it's a love letter to Magical Girl Warrior core ideas, that also takes some shots at some of its overused supplementary tropes. And half the seasons of Pretty Cure would be almost as dark if their actual plot is condensed to twelve episodes and they are not marketed as Pretty Cure (so that it would be possible to sucker the audience into expecting a Downer Ending).
 * So what exactly is the unidentified substance that darkens a Soul Gem and must be transferred to a Grief Seed? And why do Grief Seeds have a limited number of 'uses'?
 * It's basically Grief. The darker magic and energy born of magical exhaustion and negative emotion; in the Puella Magi universe, the hope and despair created by magic have to balance out to 0. As for why the Grief Seeds have limited uses: If they get too full, the seed hatches back into the Witch it was before.
 * (not OP) I'm going to assume the Witch becomes more powerful on every iteration, right? Otherwise you just need one witch eternally for soul purifying purposes. Gethbot (talk)
 * How exactly did Homura fight and defeat Charlotte? As her shield is not present at all during that entire sequence, even in the DVD version her shield is not present. Just a production error?
 * It's entirely possible that it was just her dodging with the physical power innately given upon becoming a Puella Magi. Then the bombs she left where she was standing did the rest.
 * If she was dodging with her own abilities (which would be amazing) that doesn't explain where the bombs came from. As we saw in episode 10, her shield is a hammerspace closet. Either it's a production error, or they thought up her time stopping and hammerspace powers after episode 3 was made. Considering how much effort they put into making her abilities a mystery, that wouldn't be surprising.
 * All the Puellas can make their weapons appear and dissapear out of nowhere(Both Mami and Sayaka with multiple muskets and cutlasses). Maybe Homura was abusing that ability constantly.
 * Confirmed in episode 10. Homura has no other powers besides stopping time and storing items in her shield. She had to physically take the weapons and place them in her shield. I doubt Sayaka had dozens of swords lying around.
 * What exactly is this thing that appears before the prologue. Even now, long after the show's ended, it just seems like a Red Herring to get people speculating.
 * It's Kriemheld Gretchen.
 * Agreed. Compare to this and this.
 * Why don't any of the characters find Kyubey the slightest bit unusual? This is a world with very real animals, so something like Kyubey would at least raise a few eyebrows, especially since it can TALK. In any other Magical Girl anime, the Weasel Mascot is reacted to very noticably, especially when they see that it can talk, but in this case, no one bats an eye, especially Madoka, who protects this potentially rabid, unidentified animal simply because it's hurt.
 * The witches are also fairly strange, especially in comparison to other Magical Girl monsters. Perhaps they assume he's one of the many supernatural creatures they're dealing with.
 * Maybe, but by then Madoka and Sayaka hadn't encountered any. They found Kyubey injured, protected him from Homura, and then got caught in a barrier.
 * Madoka was contacted telepathically and by that point had already had a precognitive dream, and Sayaka asks if Kyubey were a stuffed animal. Look, when something talks and offers you wishes, you tend to just assume it's not a normal animal.
 * Actually, his appearance of being cute and the like may have been what caused them to immediately help him, which just leads to some more Fridge Horror.
 * How did Kyouko's father find out about her wish? This is the only case of someone who does not ever form a contract with Kyubey finding out about the wish, and the only time besides Madoka's wish that the wish's beneficiary finds out about the wish. Kyouko's narration also doesn't mention an explanation, so I have to wonder- is there a reason why her father found out, or does she know?
 * It's implied that she came forward with it herself in order to make him proud of her. It's also possible he caught her fighting a witch and asked WTF was goin' on.
 * The latter seems more likely, since (at least in the manga), she says the "truth came to light," which would imply that somehow, he found out by some way other than her own admission.
 * After Mami's death, why didnt it occur to Madoka to just wish her back to life? I mean, there's a genie hanging around her who states it can grant any wish she desires. And its never mentioned by Kyubey that resurrection was impossble. I can understand why Sayaka didnt since she probably was saving her wish for Kyosouke who she has a crush on but there was nothing preventing Madoka especially since she was deeply affected by Mami's death. Her reluctance to make a wish would've been understandable after the reveal of the Awful Truth but until then there was nothing stopping her. Also it seems rather out of character for Kyubey not to use this to his advantage to coerce Madoka into becoming a Puella Magi to bring Mami back given that he spends the rest of the series pressuring her to make a contract when things are about to go wrong.
 * Probably because you can't bring someone dead back to life, but screwing with time if fine. Mirai Nikki worked the same way.
 * Because Madoka's not stupid enough to throw her life away for a friendly acquaintance she's only known for two days that's going to die in some other fight anyway. Madoka's not stupid; if she's going to sell her life she's going to get the bang for her buck.
 * I see it as Madoka being unwilling to make the contract for 'any' wish at all, even reviving Mami, who I'm sure she was attached to (even given the short time span they were together). Remember that she understands Mami died a horrible death because she was a Puella Magi, and it was exactly the event which caused her to rethink making the contract. She simply didn't want to die with the dangerous job of being a Puella Magi, just like Mami did.
 * I think Kyubey might have been hoping Madoka and/or Sayaka would, on the spur of the moment, make a contract with him to revive Mami (and thus be able to fight and save their own lives), just like Mami had been forced to make a contract to ensure that she survived the car accident, since immediately after Mami is eaten, he tells them to make a contract with him. Then again, perhaps if it were that simple to revive the dead, Homura could just have asked to bring Madoka back from the dead as an ordinary human in the original timeline. Problem solved.
 * That wouldn't have fit Homura's desires, though. It's more than just making sure Madoka lives; it's also to prevent her suffering, growing stronger to protect her, and making sure Madoka doesn't just sacrifice herself to save someone else like...the next day.
 * From the YMMV page's entry of Les Yay Shipping:
 * Sayaka, Kyoko's magical weapon is a harpoon spear, make of that what you might. Also, in the episode, the episode-end guest-image is a Catgirl Kyoko.
 * That wouldn't have fit Homura's desires, though. It's more than just making sure Madoka lives; it's also to prevent her suffering, growing stronger to protect her, and making sure Madoka doesn't just sacrifice herself to save someone else like...the next day.
 * From the YMMV page's entry of Les Yay Shipping:
 * Sayaka, Kyoko's magical weapon is a harpoon spear, make of that what you might. Also, in the episode, the episode-end guest-image is a Catgirl Kyoko.

...no, I don't get it. Can someone please explain what's so homoerotic about this?
 * Presumably someone reading too much into it. Dying together is probably the obvious one, but also spear fishing, the symbolism of the "spear" (as contrasted on this wiki with the distaff in an unrelated trope), and finally, how cats eat fish, with all the...other meanings fraught in that verb choice. It makes more sense if you start with the conclusion and look backwards for details to support it, rather than the more usual converse.
 * Why does the suicidal woman Mami saves in Episode 2 look so much like Madoka's mother (the only major differences are that her hair is longer and she wears a vest instead of a blazer)? The only other indicator that she isn't Madoka's mother is that Madoka doesn't say anything to the effect of "That's my mother!"
 * Speculation time: it initially WAS going to be Madoka's mother, but the production team decided that it would cause too many problems down the line so they made a couple last minute changes.
 * The hell are you going on about? They look NOTHING ALIKE. They're both women in business suits? Ooooh that only describes every woman in the Japanese workforce.
 * When Kyouko is facing off against Oktavia, and Homura steps in, why didn't she ask her for help in defeating her, rather than giving a full on Heroic Sacrifice?
 * The necessity of the Heroic Sacrifice itself is very debatable. It looked less like something she had to do, and more like something she wanted to do, especially based on her words to Sayaka as she performed it. The idea was that Kyoko killed herself with Sayaka so that Sayaka wouldn't have to die alone; . Asking Homura to help her kill Sayaka would certainly have prevented Kyoko from dying, but that would be counterintuitive to what Kyoko was trying to accomplish after her attempt to save Sayaka failed.
 * Okay, this isn't really a plot hole or mistake, just an ambiguity I'm curious about: what would happen if you got an insta-kill shot on a magical girl? Like, decapitation, or even vaporization, with the soul gem intact. Would that destroy the body/soul link and send them into stasis? Would their soul gem try to repair the damage and turn into a witch? If the link was already broken (e.g., by reaching the distance limit) when you destroyed their flesh, would there be any way to wake up the magical girl?
 * According to Kyubey, as long as the soul gem is alright, the magical girl is immortal and can keep fighting. Interpret as you please.
 * Here's something I don't quite get: The general consensus seems to be that Homura can't use magical attacks, yet the very first episode has her firing pink balls of energy at QB . There's also this scene in Episode 9
 * My theory: