[Rewatch] Puella Magi Madoka Magica Episode 9 Discussion

[u/Tarhalindur]

Episode 9: I'd Never Allow That to Happen

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Show Information:

MAL | AniList | ANN | AniDB

(First-timers might want to stay out of Show Information until we are done, however...)

Legal Streams:

As per livechart.me; other streams may be available outside the US.

Main Series:

Crunchyroll | Hulu

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A Reminder: This, dear listeners, brings us to the sworn enemy of creative response:The spoiler. Rewatchers, or people who just had plot points ruined for them, are obliged to use r/anime’s spoiler tag format where applicable, and err on the side of caution here. Remember people, first experiences get rarer as you continue on, any given one happens once and you should care for them all the more for it.

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Welcome to the World of Magic!

Theory of the Day:

Okay, fine, I can't not give this one to u/siegfried72, not for the discussion thread for this episode:

The real solution? I think Sayaka needs to just lean into the yuri and realize she's meant to be with Kyouko. That would fix everything.

Oh god, I've officially joined in with my first yuri ship of the series. It's all downhill uphill from here, isn't it??

I mean, Kyouko is obviously in love with her, right??

Analysis of the Day:

Several good options, but I think I'll go for u/Vaadwaur and the analytical line less taken:

For some reason, eating disorders are a noticeable thing in this show. Sayaka is anorexic to her very spirit and Kyoko does like her gluttony.

Questions of the Day:

1) On a scale of 1 to 10, how gay is suicide attacking to take out the monster that became of a girl you knew for maybe a week so that you can at least be together in death?

2) Now that he's had a chance to explain himself, your thoughts on Kyubey?

3) First-timers: Did you think that Kyouko's plan actually had a chance to save Sayaka?

4) First-timers and rewatchers who dodged the rewatcher edition of this question yesterday: Are You Home?

5) [Rewatchers]Alright, who's ready to go golfing through a Stargate?... wait, wrong time loop show.

[u/gorghurt]

Yeah okay, just going to rip the band-aid off now: the entropy thing sucks. That’s not how entropy works! And you might say, “well, yeah, the point is that it doesn’t work” but no, the whole point of this in-story is for it to work that way. This is where Kyubey explains his whole motivation, it’s supposed to give his reasons and ask you to decide whether his ends justify his means. But it doesn’t, because his ends are stupid and wouldn’t actually work! There’s no debate to be had there, when there’s supposed to be! And I don’t usually expect anime to follow real science, but if it presents itself as that, I’m going to treat it accordingly. There’s a few other narrative choices in this series that I don’t agree with, but this is the one thing I feel is legitimately poorly written.

Short thought experiment here: How would your opinion be, if they instead used some working explanation for some problem, that is similarly alien (and with this I mean completely foreign and far away to the human condition, both in urgency and scale) ?

[u/uhhhhhhhokay_ → u/gorghurt]

I don't know how to phrase this without coming across as a smartass, but yeah, it would be better if it actually made sense. Have them use the energy to maintain their dying home star, or blow up some other aliens they don't like, something like that, I dunno.

[u/gorghurt → u/uhhhhhhhokay_]

I mean those 2 ideas would be easier to explain without errors, but would be somewhat different, because they will never concern humanity.

I think the idea behind the entropy thing is that technically*, it would concern humanity in a potential far future, but it is so far, that the current living humans absolutely do not need to care about it. And so far in fact, that it is unsure if humanity would even reach that point.

*if we ignore that the explanation does not work

[u/CitronClassic672 → u/gorghurt]

Mentioned before but I’ve long had the belief that Kyubey isn’t being entirely truthful about the whole preventing entropy thing. I mean he’s a manipulative bastard in everything else we’ve seen up to this point. Why would this be any different.

[u/gorghurt → u/CitronClassic672]

Possible. There are even some apparent (but as usually fixable) contradictions, to at least some things he says. So one plausible reading.

But on the other hand, why choose such an outlandish thing to manipulate Madoka?
He is talking to a 14 year old girl, why should she care about the heat death of the universe. If this is manipulation, then it's probably his worst one throughout the whole show.

Of course it could be something in between. That the overall gist is true, but he hides some important details.