Matthew Strand · March 2, 2011 at 7:53 am
In order to read this post without receiving spoilers, I streamed episodes 5-8. I do agree with the QB-picking-emotinally-unstable-girls theory, though.
Madoka 8 Craze
anime-admin ·
February 25, 2011
It’s hard to believe how far this series has gone since the first episode. Nothing like a little nightmare fuel to get a series off the ground and right into dark territory where no Mahou Shoujo dare tread. I don’t think I need to say this, considering the title, but if you haven’t been following Puella Magi Madoka Magica up until episode 8 I advise against continuing to read this article. There’ll be some nods to the circlejerk-fest over at 4chan following the discovery about most of their predictions regarding the series coming true. Let me just say that I’m glad we found out these theories were true by now, because if the series held out until the final episode guarding the backstory, the ending would’ve just been downright disappointing. Disappointing in a, “well, saw that coming. Madoka is predictable. Bad series is bad,” way.
After talking with Chaeha and Chris last night, I’ve lost a lot of sleep over some of the theories they came up with. Well, just one in particular. I put the pieces together while I was lying awake in my bed at 3 in the morning last night. Last spoiler warning here guys, don’t read if you haven’t seen up to 8.
Episode 8 in a nutshell
First off, anonymous got it right with three details:
- QB is up to no good
- Homerun’s from the future
- Witches are just bad Magical girls
So round of applause for them. Me, I got this scorecard:
- Homerun went back to stop Madoka from making a wish
- …and Homerun REALLY is a good guy :\
I didn’t make this note in the post way back when, but I did say a few times that Madoka probably is going to wish to become a magical girl, making her the best magical girl ever. That became pretty obvious when QB was saying that she’s the best thing ever a few weeks back, and when she was telling Sayaka that Madoka’s way better than she is just last week.
Morning Rescue Speculah: Sadly rejected
4chan’s got NOTHING on Korea though. Here’s a big shoutout to our wonderful Korean bro Chaeha, who’s been watching the Korean speculah since the show started. One dude called it two weeks ago that Kyubey’s short for “Incubator,” and they came up with most of the theories /a/ came up with by around the third episode. They were also the first to express the possibility that QB was evil, and that it would be even more of a twist if he turned out to be a good guy. In short, a lot of the circlejerking on /a/ isn’t as well-deserved, because Korea is so good they had Higurashi figured out by the first few episodes when that came out all those years ago. Talk to Chaeha if you want to hear about more tales of Korean speculah (including their thoughts on Umineko).
Anyway, what kept me up at night was the possibility that Homura is really Madoka from the future. The roots in this theory rest on two assumptions:
- “Homura” has been trying — Multiple times — to keep Madoka from making a wish
- Soul gems don’t care about their host, and therefore Magical Girls can take on any form in any body
In the “original” timeline, Sayaka is still a retard, Mami still dies, and Madoka really just wants to help all of them. Whoever or whatever Homura is in this timeline is somewhat irrelevant — which is kind of a flaw of this theory — but for the sake of argument, let’s just pretend she doesn’t exist in this timeline. Madoka makes the wish to become a magical girl to save her friends, and it turns out she has control of life, death, time, reality, etc. In short, she’s the most powerful being next to God. However, being human, she’s subject to all sorts of negative feelings, and in naivete, just feels herself falling into despair. As we find out in episode 8, witches really are just fallen Puella Magi. And, the only thing worse than a magical girl with next-to-godlike powers is a witch with next-to-godlike powers.
NO ONE IS HAPPY IN THIS SHOW
Grief seeds are properly named. It seems that Magical girls that have a fallout of helplessness drop into grief, and they just stop wanting to protect the world around them. Obviously, Kyubey’s a real bad dude, and really wants this kind of witch to just bring an end to all life on earth as we know it. So, he picks the most emotionally flawed girls to be Puella Magi. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what Kyubey wants more: Annihilating the human race, or just really powerful grief seeds to be created. A lot of theories include that Grief seeds are the source of Kyubey’s power, and this is very likely.
Madoka doesn’t want to become a witch, and most likely she feels herself turning this way. I mean, Homura, as we know her, is very nearly nothing like Madoka is in the series. In short, Madoka’s changed a great deal to the the point that she barely recognizes herself. Being the God that she is, she changes herself into a lesser form (shell, body, whatever) so that she can try to change the past in order to create a future where she doesn’t become God, and doesn’t become a witch potentially bringing an end to all humanity in the process.
This is where the theory finally gets frighteningly surreal, with Madoka talking to herself about:
- What it means to become a magical girl
- How a magical girl ought to behave
- How she can’t save her own best friend
The only real evidence of even remote parts of this theory is that Homura doesn’t even consider herself human at this point. Further evidence would support this theory if it turns out Homura’s been trying multiple times (Higurashi-esque) to keep Madoka from making a wish.
Unfortunately, this theory really falls apart at episode 1, because then we can make a lot of the atheist arguments about what it means to be God or God-like. I mean, if someone is omnipotent, surely they’ll know exactly how to stop all this bad stuff from happening, and we wouldn’t have a Homura failing to stop Madoka from trying to make wishes, failing to save Mami, failing to save Sayaka, the list goes on and on. Surely, someone who’s omnipotent could bring about a happy end on the first try.
The more likely theory is of course that Homura wished to go back in time to stop all this nonsense from happening. Or, that Madoka asked Homura to make the wish to try and stop herself from making the wish in the first place. There’s probably some really cool backstory here which will get revealed in future episodes, so that’s why I really can’t wait to find out what happens. It might be fun for all of you to give the Homura-is-Madoka theory a shot though. I’m probably going to rewatch a few of the episodes with this in mind if only for the mind-f*ck of the possibility in the first place before we’re treated to more exposition in future episodes totally shutting this theory down.
Destiny indeed
It’s a great show guys, hope you all are keeping up with it. Like I said before, I’ll keep the drive updated if you need the eps and don’t want to go to the trouble of downloading them yourself.