As someone who suffers from depression and anxiety, I think about this a lot. I have strong self-image issues, so it would definitely be a hall of mirrors, each one depicting another part of myself that I'm intensely uncomfortable with. Teeth would also be a major theme. I'm an almost-painfully introverted individual, but I'm also polyamorous, with six partners, five of whom are long-distance. This suggests a combination of loneliness and the desire to be left alone, probably with some very strong sexual imagery as well. Also I'm gay. My political views are extremely left-leaning, but I'm also nearly 40, which makes it hard to keep up with, or even agree with, every single "cancellation" or disavowal of things I used to love as being "problematic." I think of myself as a good person, but in Witch form, as on a bad day, I'd feel like no matter what I do I'm never going to be the person I wish I could be. So imagine the walls of my labyrinth covered with Madoka runes that spell out condemnatory Twitter messages. My familiars would probably be old bosses of mine from when I tried to seek traditional employment before acknowledging that my mental disabilities prohibit me from seeking out a regular 9 to 5, despite my very work-oriented upbringing by an extremely ambitious (and very Christian) workaholic mother. And that's not even taking into account the sheer level of pop-culture nerdiness that would probably fill my labyrinth with life-sized X-Men and Magical Girl action figures that would try to kill any Puella Magi who entered. Wow, Kyubey's missing out not making a contract with guys.

Quite frankly, it’s certainly a lot to figure out. It doesn’t help that a lot of how a witch manifests and her accompanying familiars are formed is somewhat based on the circumstances of the transformation. It was initially a big pastel room in the shape of a ☁️ (cuz I love clouds) wherein there’s a whole lounge-like place where my familiars would care for visitors by the entrance, and a huge bed where my witch form sleeps until she is disturbed all the way in the back. There are doors along the walls into rooms that differ greatly from another that represent my different “sins” or something. I forget because I’m currently reworking my witch form. As for the current version... I’m unsure how it’d look. Besides clouds. Oops.

I have this prepared! I worked it out after I finished the series the first time. For some background, I'm a lesbian and I have a fear of abandonment, so that is the premise I built this witch from. And I just happen to really love plants so I wanted a reason to cram as many as I could in! My labyrinth appears to be like a botanical garden, immaculately cared for with a stone path weaving around in a maze like fashion to the center, which is a pond full of water lilies and a fountain in the center. All of the plants are in bloom regardless of what time of year they would naturally bloom. The plants featured would represent love, homosexuality, abandonment, and loneliness. My familiars are ones I've named Helda (plant-spiders, that trap intruders with their vines and drag them into the plants to become fertilizer) and Lichtstrahl (starry eyed rabbits that dance around the garden and tend to the plants) My witch is Anastasia the Lily Witch. She appears as a black cat with butterfly wings. The cat is mostly limp with hollow eye sockets and has white lilies(lilies are called 'yuri' in japan, which is also a term for lesbian, coupled with the fact that lilies are toxic to cats I felt lilies were the most appropriate flower to use here otherwise it may have been violets or lavender) growing over her body. The butterfly wings are that of a monarch butterfly and the wing patterns resemble eyes. The witch is constantly flitting around her labyrinth in search of something that she can never find.

Oooh I would want it to be a Praxinoscope with a neverland theme. My wish would be that Me and my friend never grow apart and well you can guess what happens from there. So themes of not growing up, day dreaming in an imaginary world with imaginary friends in a perpetual cycle of eat, dance, play, and sleep. Silly vandalized marble statues and classical paintings. A giant tree in the middle where the witch could reside with a red soul gem dangling like an apple. The goal is to keep you there forever until you become one of the lost boys so to speak, forgetting your life and losing your soul becoming one of the hedonistic servants of the labyrinth. Like you shouldnt eat anything there, or join in the festivities or else succumb to the labyrinth, and the servants get to force you to join in. Victims would dream about this place and when they wish to be there the tinkerbell inspired witch familiar will whisk them away.

Looks like anime I’ve seen because I just wanna live in the anime world qwq

uuh- hey op are you alright?

Good luck. 🍀

funny how my phone rang right before that line and my ringtone is "Great Days" from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure >.>

perfect summary of homura

That's me

Now THAT is dedication!

Relationship goals?

She went all out Montero with it.

It's the ultimate goth girl glow-up

Lesbians are such powerful creatures like that. This is just the next step up from the Russian lesbian who stole a boat to go be with her lover.

god... same

Same...

Same fam. I ain't gay, but I got the latter two factors going on

@@karinaramos6510 Have you REALLY checked for that last one

Oriko: saw that coming

Mental health facts

Maybe people called her evil because that's how she wanted people to see her. I can't deny the fact that she did something bad enough to be called evil but her personality is far from being evil (she's not a good person either. No one in the series is completely a good person). She maybe created a world for everyone to be happy but we can't change the fact that the entire universe has become her labryinth (I don't know how to spell lol) and it's a matter of time before she breaks that happy world (because of her emotional and mental state)

@@PathBeyondTheDark But she is not controlling everything. The only things she changed was re-inserting the dead characters and Madoka and subjugating the Incubators. Everything else she just lets run as it will. Only when Sayaka actively challenges her or when Madoka nearly remembers and is about to bring the whole construct down does she intervene. Does that make it right? No. Does that make it evil? No it doesn't either. Homura turly believes that this is what's best for everyone, including the few people she did actively manipulate. As you say she does not need to be brought down, but needs help.

I think it's because the idea of informed consent is so important in the original series. Some of the most heinously depicted acts of Kyubey center around how it manipulates the girls into contracting, disregarding all information and mental maturity they'd need to give actual, meaningful consent. Homura's action is depicted not just manipulating Madoka, but outright forcing her against her will. I'm pretty sure that's why people consider it so evil. Taking someone's choices away is framed as a very evil thing to do in this story, so Homura doing it this intensely is considered bad by the preestablished moral rules.

And, above all, she does it in an objectively scary manner. The world shatters, corrupts, falls to darkness, gets sealed away in an enormous sphere of influence. Whereas Madoka changed the world from one of suffering and strife to one of hopes and dreams, Homura changed that world to... something else. And whatever her world ends up like, she looked at a world of hopes and dreams and said "No, this needs to change." That all being said, it is totally in Homura's character to do that, and the newer world isn't terrible, but the branding of it all is dreadful.

Pretty sure the method of how she did it rubs people the wrong way....

Let me say...It suck unless it gets a sequel!

@@EveryMan-yz1ce don't mind my username but 4th movie coming out

@@antiregionlocking I don't care about a 4th movie. I want a 2nd series instead, where the other magical girls from the spin off manga and maybe Magia Record too, can be in it. So I'll continue to boycott SHAFT for it.

@@antiregionlocking I don't want another Frozen 2!

Homura izn't depressed. (You said can't.)

Madoka arrives, Homura grabs her hands and uses her power to divide the law of cycles, specifically, she took "the records of who Madoka used to be before she became the law of cycles" and split it off from the rest. She then rewrote the universe to create one in which Madoka could like a happy human life. We know this is not merely a witch barrier because of her discussion with Kyubey - that this was the second time she had seen a new principle born into the universe. Likewise, through her conversation with Sayaka we know Wraiths are the enemy of choice rather than witches, "(M)aybe when all the Wraiths are destroyed I will" which indicates the Law of Cycles continues to function even without Madoka guiding it. One of the key symbolic purposes of this universe from a storytelling perspective is that it is, in theory, the first time everyone got what they wanted. Madoka lives happily with her family and goes to school with people she can see every day and be friends with. Mami is no longer alone, having Nagisa with her. Kyoko and Sayaka are together, Sayaka both not being dead and able to hear Kyosuke playing the violin again. Nagisa has cheese. Homura finally seems to have succeeded in protecting Madoka and Madoka's happiness. So why does she want to die? Homura has always considered herself useless baggage. Going back to the first timeline, she labeled herself a burden, unable to do anything right, always embarrassing herself. She was alone and friendless until Madoka and never had a sense of self-worth. Rebellion isn't even remotely subtle in depicting Homura's depression as having reached suicidal levels. Everything about a witch in some way reflects her feelings, the labyrinth, the shape, the familiars, etc. So, what can we learn about Homura? To begin with, Homura is the nutcracker witch - a broken tool that can no longer fulfill its purpose, in a word, useless but for the love a girl has for it. Homura made her wish to fight for Madoka - something no longer possible because Madoka does not, and never did, exist in this universe, rather on a higher plane. Recall Homura's remarks in episode 11, "protecting Madoka was the only thing she had left to guide her" and "I lost myself a long time ago." We see this reflected in the form of her witch, a creature missing half its jaw, whose teeth fall out, who is condemned to death by its own mind for terrible crimes, crimes we will get to in a bit. The final form of her labyrinth itself was marching to her own execution by guillotine, led by her own familiars. Speaking of, her most powerful familiars, the Clara Dolls (incidentally, how we know which version of the Nutcracker we are dealing with) are reflections of her feelings about herself. Their names are Inferiority, Cowardice, Coldheartedness, Laziness, Vanity, Pride, Pessimism, Liar, Selfishness, Slander, Blockhead, Jealousy, Stupid-Looking, and Stubbornness. Each is as powerful individually as a magical girl. There is a place reserved for a 15th, Love, but it is suspiciously absent. So, what do they do other than fight mice? Well, to begin with, we see repeated uses of them associated with empty shoes and jumping off cliffs, cultural touchstones for suicide. They attempt to get the attention of Kyoko who tosses them an apple, which Homura forces them not to accept, a pattern also seen with Homura and Mami, an action to get attention and then denying herself the interaction because she believes she is unworthy of it. Likewise, the repeated utterances of "Fort Da", an element from Freudian psychology dealing with, in part, a child who repeatedly destroyed themself by hiding from their reflection, denial of pleasure, and masochism. The Clara Dolls throw tomatoes at her as she proclaims herself to be evil, throwing tomatoes at someone generally being associated with giving a low quality performance. They fake tears for her supposed execution. In short, her familiars harass Homura at every turn because her feelings for herself are hatred.

Why? It goes without saying, Homura idolizes Madoka. She refers to her as “as sacred as a goddess” and has an actual shrine to Madoka in her labyrinth. She defied Madoka's wish, the wish she swore to keep fighting for because it was a world Madoka wanted to protect, and she turned her back on it, first by becoming a witch and creating a happy dream in her soul gem, and then by pulling Madoka from Magical Girl heaven. Regardless of cause, regardless of benefit (and by every measure from what we see of Homuworld is better for all involved than the previous one (so far as after all the cracks in Madokaworld were not evident until Rebellion so there may be deep flaws here too we just haven't seen)), she still turned her back on the wish and world Madoka swore to protect and that, to Homura, is unforgivable which is why she looks so miserable all the time. This is not helped by the final exchange with Madoka where Madoka affirms she holds the world precious and that breaking the rules because you want to is wrong, leading Homura to conclude, in true Homu fashion, that some day Madoka will hate her (you will be my enemy etc.) Final concluding notes. Question. What about Kyubey? We see Kyubey has become a lightning rod of some kind for the despair of the world. Whether Homu is sending them out as Magical Coobies to punch Wraiths or just funneling despair directly into them is unclear. Either way, he got fucked up. Homura very likely always had the power to do this in the original series but had no way to tap into it until she transformed through the power of love (ai yo). In episode 11 when Kyubey explains what determines Magical girl power level, threads of fate are used as a visual representation of how much power is held, Madoka having a bunch of them from Homu's time jumping. Later in the same episode, Kyubey describes Homura's predicament and we get the same visual, exactly as many threads in exactly the same places. Question. Was Madoka actually suffering as Madokami? Pretty assuredly yes. While it is true Homura's 'dream' speech in the flower field lacked vital context, being separated from her family and friends was still traumatic for her. It was referred to repeatedly in episode 12 as a fate worse than death. When Madoka's arm reaches through the window to reach Homura, it is covered in cuts, the same kind people who engage in self cutting are often. Keep in mind, Madoka displayed many of the same depressive behaviors as Homura, if not to the same degree, speaking on multiple occasions as being good for nothing, bumbling through life, being a burden on people (Episodes 2, Episode 3, and Episode 8 IIRC). Further, if you allow the Concept Movie as evidence the transcript is explicit on this point. Quote: "Do you know what happiness is? It's bright May sunshine. It's the warmth of family. It's fried eggs for breakfast. But there's nothing like that in Heaven. Do you know what happiness is? It's having your name called by someone. It's calling someone's name. It's when someone is thinking of you. But God alone cannot have any of this. A lizard girl took pity on God… …so the lizard girl tore God in two, and kidnapped one of her halves to Earth from Heaven. That an act even that cruel can seem like a ray of light in the middle of darkness… it's beautiful." So, yeah, evidence says that Madoka was suffering intensely in her new existence, but she was willing to for the benefit of all magical girls, something neither Homura nor Kyubey could abide, for wholly opposite reasons. Question. Wasn't Homura just selfish? Didn't she just want Madoka all to herself? First, let's define selfishness. Dictionary says: "lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure." So, Homura, given phenomenal cosmic powers to rebuild the universe as she saw fit, did she make it for her profit and pleasure? Clearly not. Literally everyone in the movie got a happy ending except her and Kyubey judging by the expressions in the closing montage. By contrast, Homura's last shots were looking devastated, crying, dancing alone with sad eyes, and then leaping off a cliff. Yeah. Did she want Madoka all to herself? Clearly she was capable of performing vast, complex, memory rewrites. Why is Madoka not her BFF? Her lover? Why is Sayaka permitted on the same continent? The key to all this is that this isn't what Homura actually wants. We already know what Homura wants, we saw it in the construction of her labyrinth. The only thing that changed between the start of the movie and the end is Homura came to terms with the fact that the answer to Sayaka's challenge, "make sure you are okay destroying this version of Mitakihara so you won't have any regrets later" is in fact she was not okay with it. That world, where the girls interacted happily, fought nightmares which posed no real threat, went to school, ate lunch together, laughed, loved, lived. She wants everyone to be happy with one notable exception. Note at the beginning of the movie they did it all without her - because she does not believe herself worthy to be among them and does not believe she can be forgiven for sullying Madoka's wish. In short, she does not believe she deserves happiness. Far from selfish, I would argue Homura exhibits a form of toxic selflessness, a dedication to an another so extreme as to deny one's self any value or worth apart from serving them - why she doesn't care if she becomes Madoka's enemy so long as Madoka is happy because giving up being friends with Madoka, giving up being with her at all, giving up her joy, her self worth, her value on her own life, Madoka's love for her, she will sacrifice all of it as long as Madoka can be happy. Just as Madoka did before her for all other Magical Girls, she gives herself for Madoka. Question. Were the Incubators still a threat? Did Homura have other options to deal with them? Absolutely, and maybe. In the words of Kyubey, "if we can observe it, we can interfere with it, if we can interfere with it, we can control it... You should all conclude your existence by becoming witches." By this point it is too late. Even supposing the inquisitive little shit didn't devise an experiment that wouldn't require Homura, (he stated in Episode 12 he had not YET been able to determine why soul gems vanish when they can no longer be cleaned, so even Homura having kept her silence might not have helped in the long run) by the beginning of Rebellion that ship had already sailed. We know, though it is unclear if Homura did, that Kyubey can project images, memories, and thoughts into the heads of Magical Girls and now that they had seen Madoka they could pass on her image to any number of magical girls in the future, convey she is the only thing that can end their suffering, and wait for her to fall into their honey trap - probably starting with Mami and Kyoko since those two would let them skip a step. Likewise, the odds of anyone else ever being equipped to deal with the Incubator threat besides Homura going full demon were astronomically low. As for other options, maybe. The thing is that Kyubey as a threat is one you should never take lightly and the possible, probable, outcome of Rebellion is for whenever the next movie comes, some loophole, some oversight, some error will allow Kyubey to regain the upper hand a third time putting Madoka and the law of cycles at risk again, such as Homura missing the Incubator homeworld or whatever. Hypothetical until more content comes and not that important. One of the defenses against that is as long as Madoka does not regain her memories, the girl she knew as Madoka is not identifiable with the Law of Cycles and so the observational data the Incubators gathered is no longer useful in summoning her into their traps. As long as it is moving on autopilot, it, and Madoka, are both safer from interference. Just conquering the Incubators without splitting the LoC may have been adequate, but to Homura, no step is too far in protecting Madoka. Likewise, other, lesser steps, would have done nothing about Madoka’s suffering. Question. Is she actually evil? Debatable. I lean towards no, personally, that she is still the same sad, scared, lonely girl who wants good things for everyone she ever was who only labels herself evil because she went against Madoka's wishes and to her Madoka is a supreme good. She gave everyone a happy ending and chose like a Homura to take all the world's problems onto her own shoulders (I won't rely on anyone anymore). Some people hold that denying Madoka the self actualization to kill Witches with her own hand is a problem or that this is about possessing Madoka rather than making her happy, (I explore my disagreement with this above) but I don't agree with those reads, but I will say this is subjective material and there is not necessarily a right answer. Question. Did Homura do anything wrong? No. But seriously, that is a matter of debate, discussion, subjective analysis, and that it is deliberately unclear is part of the reason I love the movie enough to have spent, , 2992 words preemptively passionately pleading the good nature and reputation of a fictional character. Different people are going to take different things from this and I find it unlikely this will be my final draft of this document as objections are raised, new evidence considered, or, hopefully, new content is released. If you stuck it out to the end, thank you. You make the PMMM community worthwhile.

Nice job dude, I find understanding analysis alot easier when i can read it so this helps out alot, thanks. Also, very detailed thank you

@Logic Bomb/Stuart Friend I would always credit Homura as committing the ultimate selfish act because her actions go against Madokas wishes. However after reading how this fits the term toxic selflessness I really have to agree with you on that one. the only benefit she actually gets from doing what she did was seeing that Madoka is finally safe and happy, the one true thing Homura ever wanted. I would Like to say More but for the most part I’ve came to similar conclusion already after my own Multiples viewing of this series though you were far better at articulating these points than I could. this was a really good read and I thank you for putting the time and effort in writing all this down.

@@RedTooth552 I love your idea of toxic selflessness, because it makes us reconsider the duality and split of Homura/Madoka. The difference between them is not that their motives are opposite, they are actually exactly the same. They are both selfless, the split comes in the devotion and form of self sacrifice that is made. In that way, the object of the story becomes pointing out the potential faults of extreme selflessness.

I think it's fairly self evident (truth be told I'd forgotten there Was dialogue in it, though, it's been a while lol). Madoka's existence as a God in Heaven still didn't carry the fulfillment of being human and having interpersonal relationships, or enjoying the other regular mundanities of a human existence - Homura didn't think it was fair for her to lose that.

@@NezumiVA Another interpretation of being placed into the Law of Cycles is that girls are potentially placed into a eternal sleep instead of an actual afterlife, perhaps akin to the Buddhist concept of Nirvana, until Madokami specifically wakes them up for something. There's a few lines in the Rebellion Production Note that might point to that and Nagisa specifically said she came back to eat cheese, implying that the Law of Cycles lacks basic pleasures like food, which is kind of disturbing if you think about it.

One should mention, though, that the Concept Movie apparently is a dead end -- it seems to have nothing to do with the topics and/or message of a Fourth Movie, should one ever get to be made (and involve Urobuchi in its production).

@@eldricshadowchaser5454 This may or may not be bad -- it depends on what the circumstances in the afterlife are. If we imagine it as being analogous to normal life -- we have bodies and move around and do things like eating cheese -- then the absence of cheese is indeed sad. But if it is completely different (and that's been the claim of all religions, right? that the afterlife is not just a repetition of our current lives), then it may also have other things whose absence in our normal life would be just as sad; but Nagisa, despite her own pain and despair, still enjoyed her life, perhaps more than Sayaka or Kyōko did, or perhaps more like a child, who is happy at small things like cheese.

@Asehpe may I ask what makes you say the concept movie is a dead end? I haven’t seen any statements about it anywhere.

Same

They plan to continue it. Ir’a far from the ending.

Movie 4 is coming out boys

Hey i hope you ready for tears machine of the 4th movie thats coming

i disagree that rebellion is a perfect ending because both the ending of the original series and rebellion are two extreme sides of a spectrum one being what madoka wanted and the other being what homura wanted and where the story is rn is very unbalanced I think the series will end once they reach a compromise or mutual agreement while achieving their comon goals

This comment makes me uncomfortable 😶

For however long this film has been out, I have always seen homuras turning into a witch scene as the epitome of how it feels to fall into a depressive episode. The entire film being so well a depiction of being a self aware with suicidal ideation. I was terribly in Despair most of my life and like you said I understood homura so much. There's something to be said there..

(Meme) -Me after killing a Juggernaut in MW

Well, Nietzsche was better at it than the Clara Dolls...

I can only hear the uwu version

Yep, I agree with you pretty much. The outcome of the ending for the universe is not bleak at all. The only thing I'm skeeved out about is how readily Homura denies Madoka her agency throughout the series and the movie.

@@isabellamorris7902 Oh for sure. Homura's love is very controlling, it's the main issue I personally have with her. Her methods were what worked this time, but they're not really healthy for a long term romance.

@@ZacharyStiles But even then, Homura does genuinely believe that Madoka made her wish under duress the first time round, and that this is the choice she would have made had everything gone "right". She's not blameless but I think she believes this is what Madoka wants - in the sense of "I have now freed her to make this choice", not "it's for her own good!" (Mostly anyway)

@@isabellamorris7902 Yeah. To be clear I am very much on team "Homura did nothing wrong" (this time), I am just very much filled with concern for the future. 😅

@@ZacharyStiles oh absolutely!!

That's exactly how it was. From the original series itself, from the first time she looped back, she wasn't fighting for Madoka, she was fighting for the version of Madoka she had in her memories. Certain lines from Kalafina's Madoka Magica songs actually indirectly reference this, specifically these lines from Kimi no Gin no Niwa, the EST of Rebellion: "The guard who wants to protect your childish slumber keeps the gate to adulthood tightly closed. I wonder if you’ve noticed, that the truth is nowhere but in the past? Both future and hope are selfish stories that someone imagines, of a far away garden that no one yet knows." Analyzing the lyrics of the songs used in the anime is a blast, it really gives a lot of interesting insight into the show (kudos to Yuki Kajiura for those songs, she's amazing)

Not exactly, when ppl loop like this typically the perception of a person is warped. Madoka becomes the underlying past themes of her character throughout timelines. So to Homura, the Madoka who asked her to save herself from ever becoming a magical girl, is also the same Madoka in rebellion. When you think about it that way, the way that she interacts with every magical makes sense.

Just started reading Oriko and Kure kills magical girls because Oriko told her so Homura has some competition in that regard.

Yeah, I think it’s sort of strange that people assume Madoka is literally the only thing she cares about when it’s just not true. An important scene that’s usually left out of the discussion is Homura talking with Madoka’s family in the Wraith world, she’s very clearly disturbed by the effect her removal from existence had.

That's how my friends and I felt watching it. Like I was tripping hard ass balls on acid. Didn't really understand anything, yet felt the universe lol

Did he ever watch it? :3

Ya what happened??

She is not an orphan. She has parents, just not very good - not evil people, but not good at rising kids and making connection with them. It's in PSP game. Is that conon ?Yes, confrimed by the authors. You would be astonished to find out how much content and new perspectives was put into that game.

Dame Sayo Oh, cool. Never played the PSP game and no one really talks about Homura’s parents. Thanks!

I didn't realise that Homura was Catholic or raised by Catholic parents. This is the first I've heard that.

A lot of the original show deals with the fact that Selflessness and Selfishness aren’t particularly well defined or even mutually exclusive. Sayaka and Kyouko obviously with their wishes but Mami with her almost but not quite manipulating Madoka into joining her too.

Eyyy, there's the PTSD themes I was looking for!

@@8pierrot89 that whole aspect and framing of the movie (and anime) are so seriously underexplored, it's not even funny.. there's so much to say about it, FUCK

@@JennyDarukat I know right!? I read ONE article/post about it, and it was mostly with the framework of the ptsd a soldier experiences, which, while not entirely inaccurate, doesn't exactly paint the picture that fits Homura's experience the best, I feel.

It's too REAL man! I think it adds to the validity and value of Rebellion that so many people had such immediate reactions to it. It was supposed to be an uncomfortable realization of the implications that there would always be something wrong.

OK. This is a silly question, but: why IS Madoka's wish cruel? Madoka still, presumably, exists as a personality - she appears in person to dying/Witchifying magical girls at the end of the anime. And in the magical girl heaven she makes, Sayaka's just chilling in peace and even speaks to her IIRC. (Notably, her wish also specifies erasing Witches "with her own hands".) All she's doing is putting off the next time she'll see Homura, for the sake of personally saving *literally every other magical girl in the world*. Sure, it'll be at the end of Homura's life, and I can understand her pain at meeting Madoka's mortal relatives, but... they are both now effectively immortal beings who can be together forever.

Why

@@IchibanOjousama *cough cough* She rips Madoka in half to keep her *cough cough*

And that love is toxic to herself and not just Madoka

​@@enclinker7951doesn't this save Madoka and everyone Madoka saved from the Incubators. I for one feel that what they were up to in rebellion was the reason y they granted Madoka's wish in the first place. It's wrong but she had to do it. Once, it's done she removes herself from their lives. And the way I saw it she came to see all of them and if they were happy. Before having a "farewell" moment with Madoka

The Madoka in the barrier _is_ Madoka herself, actually. She just loses her memory of why she came to the barrier once she enters it. That's why Sayaka is so savvy to what's going on ahead of time, because she and Bebe are outliers (that didn't exist in Homura's outside world anyway), given the task of returning Madoka's memory to her at the right moment (the film's climax). Of course, it still doesn't mean things go well for them lol. Madoka at that moment in particular is, of course, completely unaware of the sacrifice she made in the series, because her memory hasn't been returned yet, so she's not able to fully grasp what exactly Homura is asking of her. Even still, it's enough for Homura to take it and run with it.

​@@NezumiVA ahh okay that makes more sense oof

Haha, true. It just wasn't particularly important to my analysis.

Um, no. Rebellion is the canonical ending, not a fanfic in any sense of the word. The anime lacked an ending before Rebellion came out

@@IchibanOjousama Never said the movie wasn’t canon. Just said it deconstructs the idea of someone coming up with a new ending, which is what Homura does. Also, the anime had an ending. It may have been a bittersweet “and the story continues” kind of ending, but it’s still an ending. Which, now that I think about it, the movie has, too.

Help- this is what I'm struggling with myself. This us why I love the concept of Rebellion: the moral aspect of some people realistically struggle too.

It’s happening where getting the fourth movie but in the mean time go read the different story

The only way it could make a status quo was if Homura's rebellion led to Magia record which the writers didn't think of at the time

_and to this day Kyubey explaining his entire plot to Homura makes little to no sense to me outside of "we need the audience to know"_ Really, that's the part you still can't make sense of? Because that's pretty much how Kyubey has always been. Kyubey might not always be forthcoming with information, but will always answer truthfully when asked directly, albeit sometimes with cryptically precise obfuscation. I'd liken Kyubey's speech to Homura at the end of this film to the speech with Madoka near the end of the anime, the one where Kyubey compared humans to cattle while ostensibly claiming that were it not for the wishes and subsequent suffering of magical girls that humans would likely still be living in caves. In both cases Kyubey is confronting the girls with an awful truth in an attempt to coax them into a specific action, getting Madoka to make a contract and getting Homura to call out for Madoka's salivation respectively. Likewise in both cases, Kyubey's goals are subverted due to an inability to understand the complexities of human emotion.

@@EmeralBookwise kyubey, in madoka's case, understood despite lack of emotion that she wasn't going to make a contract in the state she was in. He approached it the only way he knows how, by appealing to logic and hoping to have her understand that such a sacrifice "helps" the universe (in his eyes). Kyubey is great at withholding information when it's crucial. And in the case of homura, doing so was absolutely in his power and best interest. He had no reason to reveal EVERY single detail of his plan. He knew homura would fly off the handle; we can see it when he turns away and refuses to answer when homura asks what it is he intends for the long run. He had to know by then that Homura was opposed to the kind of system she described to him. You could argue he doesn't understand the kind of bond between them and why homura would torture herself for this girl; hell, even the film brings this up. But even still, Kyubey tends to stand on the sidelines and allow what he needs to unfold happen unless his input is required to nudge things along. Again, there was no need to ever present himself to homura, let alone exposit all he did. She was already past the point of no return, she may not have decided to trap herself had he not explained what was going on.

Well, now we’re getting a sequel. Let’s hope that we don’t regret it.

I don't really want to comment on the film until it's fully released and also available digitally! So I can really comb through it at my leisure.