Madoka, as a popular award-winning anime, has had more than its fair share of analytical dissection. Each of its various elements picked over and individually investigated for meaning. However, in the decade plus that I have engaged in and observed these discussions, I feel that we have missed some vital connection between it all; a central thread that makes clear the way in which they all function as a whole. I'd like to try my hand at it.
To begin, some object statements about the story. Madoka is about a quintet of girls who have bargained for a wish, at the risk of their soul. A Devil's Bargain, we know, as the ciphers weaved throught the witch's domains make clear the influence of Goethe's Faust on the show. As the story progresses, Madoka is tempted to take the deal herself, even as she is constantly discouraged by Homura. She bears witness to each of the girls life as a Magical Girl, learns the wishes they gave everything for, and sees, too, the deep regrets they develop afterward. We may fairly say that the show is about Madoka's search for a wish worthy of her soul.
A Comprehensive Thematic Analysis of Madoka Magica
I think the best starting place in understanding this lies in those wishes. Here we find a fair comparison, and useful framework which I will continue to use, in C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves. In the book, Lewis explores what we mean when we say we love someone, ultimately identifying four different types which he borrows from the Greek: Eros, Storge, Philia, and Agape. I will be adding to his list Philautia, to account for our fifth Magical Girl.
Philautia is the love of self, and I assign its meaning to Mami. Before proceeding further, I do not mean for any of these loves to fully encompass the characters which embody them. Mami does not take every action solely out of self-interest. However, I do mean for them to encompass the wishes that the girls make. In Mami's case we are given just a brief glimpse into the moment of her wish, but what we know is that she and her parents were in a life-threatening car crash. Mami wished to live, and from that moment on was alone. Though no one can reasonably blame her for failing to think of her parents in such a crisis, it remains true that the wish she made was for herself, and only herself.
Mami lives out the consequences of that. She is deeply lonely. Although she is strongly self-assured, self-reliant, and self-confident, the days alone weigh on her. She, of all the veterans, is the only one to encourage Madoka and Sayaka to enter the world of magical girls. When the pair eventually agree, she is giddy at the thought of finally having friends who might join and understand her. And then, in a characteristic fit of morbid humor, Urobuchi kills her off.
Eros is romantic, or we might say sexual, love. Here we find the most typical understanding of love, as well as a fitting descriptor for Sayaka. In love (or infatuated, although with Eros there's hardly a difference) with a boy who has lost his greatest joy in life, she freely gives her wish to bring back his ability to play music. For a short while, we her share his ecstasy. And then, of course, Hitomi decides to date him. Sayaka is conflicted, she doesn't know how to mediate between her desire to see him happy and her desire to possess the object of her affection. Kyouko recommends that she break his legs and take full ownership, and here we begin to see a clearer outline of Urobuchi's thoughts on these loves.
Storge is devotional love. It is most commonly used when discussing the love between family members, and is, of course, Kyouko's. Her wish, for her father to find success in his career and purpose as a preacher, once again brings a period of initial joy. Kyouko is eventually betrayed by her father, however, and in that betrayal loses her mooring, both metaphorically and literally as she drifts from city to city. She is unable to reconcile this betrayal with her devotion.
Philia is the deep, abiding love of spiritual connection, generally used to describe the strongest of friendships. We speak now of Homura, a girl who loved her friend so dearly she threw herself into a timeloop without any end in sight, willing to face it as many times as necessary to save Madoka from her fate. But what she finds is that, as loop after loop goes by, the connection she shared with Madoka begins to fade. With each iteration, they grow further apart. By the time we arrive at the present, Madoka doesn't consider her to be a friend at all. Homura grates at her every use of an honoriffic. And as the loop comes to its inevitable conclusion we observe her lose hope, as she wonders what it was all for, and her soulgem begins to darken with despair.
Agape is unconditional love, described by Lewis as God's love for all mankind. Here we find Madoka's final wish, a total sacrifice of self to rewrite the rules of the game itself and save everyone.
With this, I think, we may understand a significant portion of what Urobuchi intends with this story. What sort of love, of wish, of motivation, will leave no regrets? It can only be one of true selflessness. But wait, Mami perhaps made a selfish wish, though under duress, but what of the others? Sayaka, Kyouko, and Homura all clearly made wishes for others, can we call that selfishness? And here we return to Kyouko's better understanding of what lay beneath Sayaka's wish. That these were not merely desires for the other, but for themselves as well. I rely again on a better writer than myself to put it in perspective, in this case Soren Kierkegaard's Works of Love: "[P]referential love’s most passionate boundlessness in excluding means to love only one single person; self-denial’s boundlessness in giving itself means not to exclude a single one...[P]referential love in passion or passionate preference is actually another form of self-love."
To paraphrase, the relationships for which these girls made their wish were exclusive in nature, and their strengths came from the passion of these individual, personal, connections. When that relationship was broken, so was their spirit. "Your relationship with your lover?" says Urobuchi, "It will lead to despair. Your family? Despair. Your closest, most undying friendships? Only despair." Or, to quote Kierkegaard one more time, "Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy."
And so we have our answer, yes? Madoka Magica is about love and selflessness, all knots undone and retied into bows. And yet, I suspect, we have missed some critical pieces. Though the wishes feature strongly, they are not the entirety of the story. After all, I haven't even quoted the Western writer that's actually featured in the show.
Goethe's Faust is likely the best known, and certainly the best written adaptation of the classic German morality play. In nearly all renditions, Faust is a man who has obtained all that Earthly power can offer him. He is wealthy, respected, powerful, and utterly dissatisfied. He wants more than Earth may offer him, and turns to otherworldly powers for help. He, too, bargains his soul, and in exchange is given precisely what he asks for. There are rarely any tricks on the Devil's part in Faust tales, he hardly needs them. Faust freely gives up his soul in exchange for what he wants, only later realizing the imbecility of the decision.
In Goethe's particular case, however, we find even further parallels. Faust is not merely dissatisfied, he is in despair, on the verge of suicide. He has spent his life in pursuit of his own self-interests, and is filled with regret. In the words of the Devil himself:
"From heaven he demands the fairest star,
And from the earth all joys that he think best;
And all that's near and all that's far
Cannot sooth the upheaval in his breast."
And so in the tradition of Job, Mephisto is given permission to go and tempt Faust. Between the Heavenly sounds of Easter Choirs, and the Infernal influence of the Tempter, Faust chooses not to, as it were, hang himself. And he certainly regrets that too.
However, beyond the bargain and its consequences, there's really very little great comparison between Faust and our heroines. Their motivations seem difficult, on the surface, to align. But perhaps our mistake is in considering Madoka to be solely concerned with relationships in the abstract. I'd like to contend that Faust's trajectory from before the play even begins is vital to our understanding. Faust, after all, did not merely seek any sort of power. He was a doctor and a philosopher (in the classical sense of the term). He studied healing, the hidden delights of God's creation, and God Himself. In the Prologue, God calls him a tree that will bloom and be adorned with fruit in its later years.
To cut short my beating around the bush, I believe Urobuchi finds a common spirit in Faust's passion for his career and interests. That he's trying to understand not just how humans should treat each other generally, but how they should do so practically, specifically, using the talents and interests they've naturally developed. This is hard! Many people do not have obviously practicable hobbies. Some spend their time writing longwinded posts for anonymous imageboards. Can this too be done in a loving manner?
Perhaps, muses Urobuchi, it comes down to the reason alone. And here, I'm afraid, I will try my hand at metatextual allegory. If I were to write this post solely for myself, could it in any way be worth the effort? No, absolutely not. Might I write this post in pursuit of romantic love? lol, lmao even. I could write it out of devotion to you, my patient reader. And yet, the spectre of betrayal hangs close by. There is every possibility that when I post this it will receive nothing but mockery, "TLDR" the anons say in unison. If I knew that it would be the outcome with certainty, what devotion could bring it forth? And Philia, of course, must be dismissed. Its true connection of souls simply cannot exist in a community of anonymous posters. What trust can really be formed in these fleeting connections?
But Agape. An unconditional, non-exclusive, wholly self-denying love for all one's neighbors. For all of my fellow Any Forumsnons. I suppose that might work.
I have just one more element of the story that I feel should be addressed, and in discussions of Madoka's themes I think it is the most often ignored. And if not ignored, mocked, because I speak of Kyubey's motivating factor: Entropy. In the original TV anime, the description of entropy was derided for being unscientific, and it would later be amended. But I think this is because the astrophysical concept of entropy isn't truly the point. It's about vitality, about the way that systems and relationships and communities inevitably leak energy. And about the necessity of creating more.
Every thread on this site is at risk of entropy. There's the risk of diminishing interest, a dying discussion that kills a thread before it ever leaves the board. But there's a more pervasive entropy in the nature of discussion. To effortpost is hard. It takes thought, consideration, and energy. To shitpost is easy. Quote an user in greentext and add a smug face. Repost whatever copypasta has been going around lately. Just post "Sneed". Every one of these options is an effortless way to suck energy straight out of the discussion. And so entropy wins, just as it inevitably will.
Unless! Unless love for your fellow user drives you forward, and generates, seemingly without any source, the energy a community needs. We have no personal relationships on this site, we cannot generate any sort of passion from an exclusive relationship. And so we are left only to follow in Madoka's example; to give ourselves away without any expectation of return. So that the other anons won't forget. Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for them, and they aren't alone.
You don’t understand this series. Watch it again.
Time is all relative based on age and experience. When you are a child an hour is a long time to wait but a very short time when that’s all the time you are allowed on your iPad. As a teenager time goes faster the more deadlines you have and the more you procrastinate. As a young adult, you think you have forever to live and don’t appreciate the time you spend with others. As a middle-aged adult, time flies by as you watch your children grow up. And finally, as you get old and you have fewer responsibilities and fewer demands on you, time slows. You appreciate each day and are thankful you are alive. An hour is the same amount of time for everyone yet it can feel so different in how it goes by. She had been told time and time again that the most important steps were the first and the last. It was something that she carried within her in everything she did, but then he showed up and disrupted everything. He told her that she had it wrong. The first step wasn't the most important. The last step wasn't the most important. It was the next step that was the most important. The leather jacked showed the scars of being his favorite for years. It wore those scars with pride, feeling that they enhanced his presence rather than diminishing it. The scars gave it character and had not overwhelmed to the point that it had become ratty. The jacket was in its prime and it knew it.
charity bump
I haven't watched it since 2011 so I can't comment but thanks for effort posting.
>words words words
Kill yourself madoka fag
I think writing for yourself is a valid form of love. Sometimes I post for the sake of practicing my literary skills, not caring if anyone reads or not.
As for me, I think Homuhomu is very breedable
Explain why you think so in at least two paragraphs.
You tried. I'd fail you if you handed this in.
As for me, I think KyouKyou is even more breedable.
its just Cardcaptor Sakura but bad
Alright here we go. Homuhomu is gay, so the chance that she will fuck any boy willingly is fairly small. She is also only gay for Madoka, and won't fuck anyone but the pink blob. I'm fine with being cucked by Madoka if that means we can take turn. Madoka is also a goddess, so breeding Homuhomu is like breeding a nun whose only other love is her god. And nun is another fetish of mine. So double checked.
Homuhomu is also an adult mentally, but in a JK's body. Think about that. And because of her long obsession for Madoka she doesn't care about frivolous stuff like fashion or social media attention. She's the perfect trad wife in the perfect body with a perfect mental state (I can fix her). And we haven't even begun talking about her physical traits like braids, glasses, devil cosplay, etc.