[Deconstructor]

Awaken!

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

But you're totally right. There's no need for QB to be evil. He can be the true antagonist and morally ambiguous all the same.

Everything is morally ambiguous. A rock is morally ambiguous because we cannot tell if it is good or evil. Kyubey is morally ambiguous because he helps the world by making Puella Magi, but tortures his Puella Magi. A killer that killed his whole life is morally ambiguous because he thew away the trash once.

I find it uninteresting to take that position, because anything can be proven morally ambiguous. I feel like you are trying to automatically rule out any arguments suggesting that Kyubey is evil or good.

I do feel that Kyubey is both good and evil, but am arguing that he intends to do more evil than good.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

In my opinion, you can't take Kyubey as he is now, and turn him into an antagonist on top of that, without making him evil.

I can think of ways... here is one. Feel free to tear it to shreds.
Kyubey is the evil antagonist; he has been torturing Madoka. But at the last episode, he fixes ALL of the world's problems. That makes him good on the whole, no? Madoka's suffering was just a test!

An antagonist is defined as the opposing character against the protagonist. If you'd like to argue that Madoka is not the protagonist, I would disagree.

Originally Posted by Scrooge McDuck

I shall reiterate. Plot twist is generally what people generally expect when facing a mystery.

Sure. But do people like what they do not expect? Or do they prefer what which is to be expected?
You are equating expectedness to enjoyability. So, by this logic, would the most unexpected plot twist be the most enjoyable? For example, what if Madoka was actually a space alien from the Big Bang and is working to figure out the difference between red and blue?

Originally Posted by Scrooge McDuck

But a show still needs to be internally logical. A diamond-allergic person in a world where elephants are made of diamond should have allergic reactions when eating those elephants.

This is supremely strong and would convince most people. But I am prepared to deconstruct just about anything.

What if that diamond-allergic person has allergic reactions by growing 0.1 mm taller? Perhaps the anime chose not to explain that part, or perhaps the people of that anime only have allergic reactions on a different world.

My point here is that there are some things that will go unexplained. Just as we cannot say what happened before what happened before the Big Bang, anime writers make mistakes. They are only human... if you wish to say that one anime is inconsistent, then you have to say all anime is inconsistent.

Now, if you think there are certain things that are more important to be consistent than others, I would agree. That is the difference between Kyubey being a puppet and Kyubey being the Joker from Batman.