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Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

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Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Headscratchers (view source)

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→‎I'm in despair! The fact that my despair {{spoiler|saves the universe}} left me in despair!
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*** 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:
*** 1)# 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.
*** 2)# 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.
*** 3)# 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?
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** I buy before the twelfth episode why it has to be pubescent girls. {{spoiler|How about after Madoka's ascension? What's the Incubator's reasoning of only teenage girls now?}}
*** More or less for the same reason, emotions power [[Magical Girl|Magical Girls]]... the stronger they are (emotionally), the more powerful they become. That and the system changed but some things still remain. {{spoiler|Madoka's own wish removed the witches from the equation... nothing more than that. What happens to the girls now is rather up in the air.}}
 
 
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