#pmmm theory

[kcflowers]

Kaiten IMAX Poster

So they announced IMAX screenings of Walpurgisnacht Rising today, and that's super exciting for the Japanese fans; I still want a US date. HOWEVER. The poster on the website is 2-3x the resolution of the one posted to social media, and we can see that the witch cards (pages?) that are flying out of the Witch's Book almost look like they've been hit with water...

The text, their descriptions... are runny. How odd.

[evangelifloss]

I can't prove it but I just know homura IS the Walpurgis Witch from the OG series, and I've known it since the show first aired

[cheshirelipstick]

Doesn't the existence of a place others can live in, a place outside of universes, utterly invalidate Kyubey's mission that relies on the preciousness of a universe that makes it worth preserving?

[terephin]

Howdy! I'm Flowey, Flowey the flower!

Anyways, I'm gonna ramble now. Introduction segment done.

So, Homura right? Homuhomu, Homegirl herself. She's a deeply broken girl.

I'm gonna talk about what I believe to be some of the why's, beyond just the looping itself.

Now, other than Madoka (A topic for an entirely different rant, honestly) and maybe Oriko (I mean, *gestures vaguely* look at the bitch, she's good at her job (Traumatizing Homosexuals)) I'd say a certain girl has hurt Homura more than anyone else.

Who?

Miki Sayaka. (Though you could argue Mami too) Now some might think this has to do with the general fragility of her mental state, but her witching out isn't what I'd say is the focus. It's the distrust.

Sayaka, despite how i usually see it passed over, was in the end one of Homura's first friends (Excluding maybe one or two people from before her surgery, but we haven't seen much implying Homu ever had friends before Madoka picked her up like a stray cat). Sayaka was, and is, someone who's opinion Homura values quite a bit, and her opinion of Homu herself hasn't exactly been good through much of the loops.

And here, I'd like to argue that this is a rather core hurt, part of turning Homura into who and what she is now. That rejection from someone who she knew as among the first to accept her, from one of her first friends.

Imagine, for a moment, the pain each time she was called evil, a monster, by that upbeat girl who was so strong and so brave. The girl that, if you ask me, looking back at Homu with the golfclub, she tried to model herself after.

It really is something I've seen quite a few fics forget, that Homura and Sayaka were friends in the beginning, that in the mind of the broken girl who doomed herself to never grow up they still are. (Sidenote : I've considered writing a snippet of Homura and Sayaka set in the Homurinth, or maybe in that world she made after her apotheosis, have them talk and have Sayaka mention that she came with in part to apologise, for all the hurtful words she'd spoken.)

Miki Sayaka is a brave, headstrong yet fragile girl, one that you can't help but admire, and I believe that Akemi Homura was swept up in that wave too. That, though they've both respectively forgotten and repressed the fact, Sayaka was an idol in the mind of that lost, lonely girl, a Hero amongst those who saved her. And perhaps that, too, is why Homura despises Sayaka's ambition to be such.

[local-lamppost]

Homura's Silencing Sayaka

As we know from the end of Rebellion, Sayaka is aware of what Homura has done and even when Homura enforces her will on Sayaka, some part of her still is adament about things not being right (like Homura in Rebellion).

As I've mentioned before, the dynamic between Homura and Sayaka is one of the aspects I am looking forward to the most. To restate, I basically want Homura to use Sayaka as something of a confidant, or someone to go to to gloat about this new paradise she has created for Madoka. Sayaka would be, not necessarily a conscious or angel on the shoulder, someone who argues on behalf of what the law of cycles, on behalf of Madoka's wish.

So then this image happened...

and yeah.

Now, I'm gonna base this theory on a detail not from Madoka Magica-not that I'm aware of this symbolism being used anywhere in the series-but from Nier Automata.

In Automata the main characters, 2B and 9S, wear blindfolds. The in game explanation for this is that it's actually a pair of goggles that acts as a hud for them. There are also characters called operators who are also masked, but these masks are shaped like veils that covers their mouths; in game explained as microphones/communicators.

Symbolically, and spoilers for Nier Automata, the veils and blindfolds represent the forbidden truths of their world. 2B and 9S are blindfolded, not allowed to see the truth. The operators' mouths are veiled, not allowed to say the truth.

Back to Madoka Magica, here Sayaka is half blinded, mouth covered. Unless this is just bait-which it very well may be-I can't help but wonder if this is a sign of Homura trying to gag Sayaka. Sure, Sayaka is without bandages in other parts of the trailer, but she also isn't a magical girl in those scenes. Homura wants Sayaka mute and blind when she has access to power, but one eye is uncovered. Sayaka is still seeing the truth.

One unblinded eye grants Sayaka the ability to perceive half the truth, but her covered mouth will prevent her from talking of this truth.

[abyranss]

I have a theory that at the end of Rebellion, Nagisa still remembers everything, and she's totally okay with the way things are.

So here's the situation: Sayaka and Nagisa are the same kind of Law of Cycles-type being, and when Homura rewrote the world at the end of the movie, Sayaka still remembered and was even able to summon Oktavia, so it makes sense that Nagisa should too, right? This was only stopped when Homura clapped her hands and manually altered Sayaka's memory.

While this interaction is happening, Nagisa was running up and down the path, dancing around and apparently very happy about something. If you interpret this as her not remembering any of the magical girl stuff and just acting her age then that might make sense, except Nagisa wasn't particularly happy before, was she?

In Magia Record, Nagisa is shown to grate under other people telling her what to do, and this even extended to Madokami. Magia Record Nagisa fled the Law of Cycles to live in a universe that Madokami couldn't reach, and when Madokami sent something over to keep an eye on her, Nagisa killed it as soon as she found out.

Additionally, Homura might not even know who Nagisa is. She was in her witch form throughout the movie and only appeared as a human in front of Homura after she'd transformed into Homulilly, and so likely she wouldn't recognise her even if she remembered Nagisa existed.

So Homura constructed this fake world where everything works out for their little group and Nagisa knows that it's fake. However, being there frees her from the Law of Cycles and if the world is designed for things to work out for them then she doesn't really need to do much to make things okay for herself. Why would she want to go back anyway? Back to the Law of Cycles? She doesn't have a close bond with Madoka from before like the others do, and she couldn't even eat cheese there. The whole reason she took this job is so she could eat cheese again! Homura's world has cheese!

Initially, this was just a headcanon of mine, but then when I rewatched the film more recently, I noticed another interesting thing, and that is that during the scene in Akuma Homura's new world where Sayaka and Homura's confrontation took place, one of Nagisa's Pyotr familiars briefly makes an appearance, and it is the only familiar to do so other than Homulilly's. So that elevated this from headcanon to a legitimate theory for me.

I might have more to say about this idea, I dunno. My head gets a little scrambled when I try to put these sorts of things together in a big explanation like I have.

The theory was originally put together throughout various different conversations in Discord.

[miraclepatty]

Spoilers for Pmmm and Rebellion ahead!

Okay holy shizzle the art style is different! They lost the brown line art but that’s okay! The new outfits are definitely something! I love sayakas and it makes me wonder why they changed.

My theory for this movie is that Walpurgis is going to be the one that rises up against Homura whether it be in a human or witch form. In Rebellion all the witches came back to fight except Walpurgis and the trailer puts a lot of attention on her. Personally, I think Walpurgis represents how Madoka is supposed to act in Homura’s eyes:

“It’s nature is helpless, a symbol of a fool that spins round and round.”

In the very first timeline Madoka is confident even when she knows she’s in a life or death situation. But as Homura keeps turning the clock Madoka becomes less confident until the very end when she’s a goddess and has memory of everything. Now Madoka and Homura are back right where they started with Homura being all knowing while Madoka is kept in the dark (although probably not for long)

And I wanna mention Sayaka too. I think the bandages over her face are going to be symbolic. If we’re assuming that the outfit changes are Homura’s doing then it could portray her dislike for Sayaka, having her cover up or having the bandages cover her mouth.

I’m so dang excited and I hope this comes into theaters in the U.S! This series was my childhood and got me through tough moments in my life and I’m excited to see how the girls changed just like I have.

[cacklingstranger]

Pmmm Theory/Speculation

Not sure if this theory has been said before, or if it was already disproven but! Here I go:

   So Homura’s wish was to go back in time so she can protect Madoka, right? Or specifically (from the wiki), "I want to redo my meeting with Kaname-san. Instead of being protected by her, I want to protect her!" Let me highlight this sentence: “Instead of being protected by her, I want to protect her!" What if, because of that sentence, the world is making it so that there is always something that Madoka has to be protected from? What if the wish deliberately creates a danger that would threaten her life? What if this is the reason Homura can never seem to defeat Walpurgisnacht or have a successful timeline? What if it makes it so that, even as she gains more power and experience, Walpurgisnacht is always stronger so that it can continue to be a threat? I dunno, it just seems very possible to me that Homura’s wish is sabotaging her. Anyways, I just wanted to get these thoughts out of my system so that I can continue working on other stuff. That’s all, Bye~