Entropy's Dark Gleam (Puella Magi Madoka Magica) [Part 5]

(Continued from Part 4)

Part 5: Rose's Resolve


Here we are at last, then. A section on our main character. The twists and turns we've encountered so far, all the shocking revelations... they've happened around her. She's lost her mentor, she's lost her best friend, and it's all entirely too much to bear. Before we get to the final reveal, the reason why this world of magical girls works the way it does, there's one oft-repeated motif we need to examine. You could call it Madoka's own ideology, if you like. Several times over the series, Homura or Kyubey or some other person will explain some inescapable grim fact about the life of a magical girl. Fighting endlessly for the sake of your wishes, being a walking corpse cradling your soul in an elaborate jewel... or even just the reality that you can't win by doing what's right all the time. Madoka will, without doubt, respond honestly; she thinks that's just too cruel. It's unfair to those who fought and love and died that the system is so uncaring towards what they wanted. The system is far crueler and far more unsympathetic to magical girls' wants and needs than Madoka could ever know, and once the jig is up regarding Sayaka it's time for Kyubey to explain.

Entropy's Dark Gleam (Puella Magi Madoka Magica) [Part 4]

(Continued from Part 3)

Part 4: Lavender's Lament


We've made it this far. The Homura summary and analysis. This will be something. Homura is, without a doubt, my favorite character in Madoka Magica. She definitely was not on my first watch, at least until the other shoe dropped and I understood her motivations and ideology. Before we get to that, though, we have to poke at the handful of scenes involving her over the preceding nine episodes. There's not much to poke at here, but it is noteworthy. First of all is the alliance she forms with Kyoko at the midpoint of the series, in order to defeat a super-powerful witch known as Walpurgisnacht. Kyoko has some qualms about how the hell Homura knows about this, but they make their little alliance anyway when Homura promises to clear out of the city after it's defeated. We know how things end up for Kyoko, so that leaves Walpurgisnacht as a threat... but before we deal with that, we need to get through Homura's tough and cool facade. We do just that in episode 8, just before Sayaka dies.

Entropy's Dark Gleam (Puella Magi Madoka Magica) [Part 3]

(Continued from Part 2)

Part 3: Turquoise's Turmoil

(TW: blood)

This whole magical girl deal just keeps getting worse and worse all the time, doesn't it? You're forced to fight terrible monsters which could you kill at any moment, every night, for the rest of your life. You're also, as we learned last time thanks to Madoka's little oopsie, a soulless shell holding your own soul in a convenient little gem. That alone is enough to make Kyoko (and Sayaka, at the top of episode 7) go "what the fuck". Hey, though, at least you get any wish you want, right? No! Not really! Some magical girls just have more latent talent than others (and, as Kyubey keeps parroting, Madoka has like all the potential) and even that factors in to your wish. So, while Mami and Sayaka had the potential necessary to heal themselves and Kyosuke, respectively, it's doubtful they could have wished for anything massive like infinite wishes. One wonders what would happen if a magical girl with low potential tried to do that, but that's besides the point.

Entropy's Dark Gleam (Puella Magi Madoka Magica) [Part 2]

(Continued from Part 1)

(TW: suicide)

Part 2: Crimson's Conflict


Right then. So that's the truth at the heart of Madoka Magica. It strung you along for three episodes with a typical magical girl-like structure, a status quo totally familiar to anyone with passing knowledge of Sailor Moon. It then just killed one of its main cast, letting the veil drop. There are other dark and terrible truths to be learned, but we must tread carefully in this grim world of despair. As this section suggests, we're going to get some good old-fashioned magical girl ideological conflict in a bit. Before we can get there, we have to set things up and try to cope with the loss of our friend Mami. How do Madoka and Sayaka take that?

Entropy's Dark Gleam (Puella Magi Madoka Magica) [Part 1]

(Hello there! This is not a new Harmony Of Hope post on the third Symphogear season, but I am Douglas Adams-ing my way through the deadline on that one. Considering October is spooky month here, I've got to bang out Harmony Of Hope 3 in the next few weeks. What we've got here instead over the next week is exactly what it says on the tin: a deep dive essay on the magical girl show, Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Why are we doing this? Promises and Patreons. This is a stretch goal of sorts I set in support of Christine Kelley's Patreon reaching the $300 mark. Christine is an amazingly talented writer who runs the blog Dreams Of Orgonon, looking at the career of Kate Bush song by song. I adore Kate Bush, and I adore Christine's writing about Kate Bush. She deserves your support! Perhaps in the future, if my creative writing circle rallies together more stretch goals for Christine's Patreon, we'll do other work in the Madoka Magica series. Perhaps I'll do it of my own volition. No promises as of yet. For now, I'll be hard at work on the new Symphogear post... but please enjoy a different flavor of magical girl exegesis.

Oh, right. There's spoilers for Puella Magi Madoka Magica all over this, even after the Read More. It's almost a decade old and they're infamous twists, but if you've not seen the show, give it a go. Right. On with it.)


Well then. Let's get the ball rolling on this one with some personal recollection. As I said two years ago (which might as well be a thousand years ago now, considering the year we've all had), in 2003 I had a brief yet memorable fling of watching Sailor Moon on TV. I did this in my own private solitude, and got caught once or twice doing it and thus a little mocked for it. We've got an interesting bit of recursion here; watching Sailor Moon in 2003 made me want to be a writer. Rewatching Sailor Moon in 2018 turned me into some sort of magical girl critical analysis type, and between that and my still-ongoing deep dive into Symphogear? I've written a literal book on this stuff, and now I will do that again. Before any of that happened, though, in 2011 I encountered this show. Puella Magi Madoka Magica (hereafter referred to as Madoka Magica). I don't remember the exact circumstances which drew me to it, unlike the vivid memory of encountering Sailor Moon, but I do know that I knew the big dark twists going in. It didn't ruin it for me, and I remembered it being an emotional gut punch.


More than that, I remember revisiting Madoka Magica, even back then. Over time, friends of mine visited the show and I got to experience it with them. Whether it was dodgy livestreams of the episodes with their reactions, or just text chats as they reacted and screamed, I got to watch them go through this journey. Unlike my solitary Sailor Moon screenings, Madoka Magica is this very shared thing for me. Beyond that, though, I hadn't really thought of the series in years. It got a sequel movie in 2013 which I watched once, and is a whole other can of worms that we won't be covering at the moment. I did consider it again, briefly, back in January. In introducing my Symphogear writeup series, I framed its title character as one of the "Eternals" and gave a brief little summary of what I took from the show, and how it fit into my broader magical girl experience and expectations. That's a remarkable bit of brevity for me, and I'm honestly impressed looking back at it that I managed to nail it down so succinctly despite not seeing the show in several years.


Now let's fuck it all up and go into 10,000 words of excessive detail and plot summary about how good this goddamned show is.