[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Mentar

Look. There is not a single MG that I know about who found non-temporary happiness by having her wish granted. How many times are you trying to deny this simple fact?

I haven't denied that at all. As it pertains to the wishes, all I've pointed out is that some happiness came from the wishes.

As Scrooge McDuck said, who in their right mind would expect eternal happiness to come from any wish that wasn't specifically for eternal happiness?

Great job ignoring the fact that she herself stated that she's sitting in her apartment crying and lonely, and that there's nothing good being a MG.

I'm not ignoring that at all. All I'm doing is presenting the other side of the story, by showing how Mami did have moments of considerable happiness after she became a magical girl. Moments of considerable happiness that do never occur if not for her wish.

I don't think that anybody here is ignoring or denying that Mami expressed considerable dissatisfaction with the magical girl role, and with her lonely life after she became a magical girl, but before she met Madoka and Sayaka.

But even so, you've never heard an exasperated person say "There's nothing good about my job" or "There's nothing good about my life" during a bad day? Are people not allowed to exaggerate, use hyperbole, or vent?

Not saying that's what Mami is doing here, but it is a possibility. Kyoko certainly doesn't seem to think that there's nothing good to being a MG, does she?

That's a quote.

Sure. And these are Mami quotes too:

"And we can all have a party to celebrate you and me teaming up as magical girls!" - Mami to Madoka, emphasis mine

"It's like my body is floating... This is the first time I've been this happy in a fight!"

"I'm not afraid anymore!"

"Because I'm not alone!"

What was making Mami unhappy wasn't that she was a magical girl, per se. What was making her unhappy was that she was lonely, period. But being a magical girl didn't mean she had to stay alone.

Honestly, some of the magical girls have made false assumptions about their own roles. Mami argued that a magical girl has no time for friends or dating boys. But then Sayaka clearly has time to go to school still, and still hang out with Madoka a lot. If Sayaka still has time for that (when I don't think that Mami was even going to school), then Mami had time for friends and dates.

Some big happiness that is. We're not talking some fleeting temporary high here. Mami was UNHAPPY.

Yes, because she was lonely. Period. Notice how happy she becomes just when she has a new friend, even with her still being a magical girl.

That's why she so wished for Madoka to join her.

And perhaps Madoka should have...

If Madoka had become a magical girl prior to Mami's final fight, maybe the two of them together would have overcome the witch, Mami would still be alive, and Mami would have gone to be very happy in a magical girl partnership with Madoka.

Maybe Madoka was wrong for not becoming a magical girl sooner...

It's a defensible argument.

Irrelevant.

It's not irrelevant if Kamijo's happiness was one of the goal's of Sayaka wish, and while her wish had a selfish element to it, I don't believe for a second that Sayaka wasn't happy for Kamijo being more happy for his own sake. Kamijo is not an "outsider" to Sayaka.

AND. LOOK. AT. HER. NOW!!!

Who's to say that the way she is now is a permanent state? They even had an interview with Homura's seiyu, IIRC, where it was stated that Sayaka will have a glimmer of hope right to the end.

Sayaka might yet recover from this. We'll just have to wait and see.

So tell me: In this example, what's more important? A fleeting feeling of happiness due to ignorance,

It's not "ignorance" at all. Her happiness was due to a real situation right in front of her eyes. That situation was the boy that she loved fully recovered, and playing music again.

or the lifelong feeling of despair later?

Who's saying that it's going to be "lifelong"? Does Kyoko look to be in constant despair to you?

The fact that you feel you need to add in highly questionable qualifiers to your rhetorical questions, in order for them to have the effect that you want them to have, says a lot about how your position is not as strong as you think it is.

Before Sayaka was involved in this whole MG mess, she was a bright, cheery girl.

I see. I guess Deconstructor's earlier core argument goes entirely out the window then.

Now she's an emotional wreck loathing what she's become without being told, on her way to self-destruction.

We will see if she self-destructs or not. That has not happened yet.

You can babble about "personal responsibility" or "she didn't ask" all you want, but in the end, it's the simple fact that she made a decision without knowing what she'd be getting into (she said so herself), and the MG business is about to kill her. And strangely, this is exactly what Homura warned Madoka of in ep1. She said she has seen countless MGs perish the same way, and I strongly doubt that she's been lying.

I don't think she's lying there either. But then, how many innocent people die and/or endure great suffering from witches and familiars if they're not stopped by somebody? That's a part of this equation that you've rarely, if ever, grappled with.

Practically all you do is go on and on and on about how bad this is for the magical girls, without considering the harm that they prevent by being magical girls.

This is obviously a very typical outcome, but this is NOT what QB tells them when he tries to contract.

To me, it seems obvious that if you're going to engage in fighting against powerful supernatural foes, that you may die doing that.

Keep in mind that Kyoko doesn't seem to resent Kyubey for that aspect of the magical girl role at all. She simply became temporarily upset with him over the soul removed and placed in a gem aspect, something that she quickly came to comfortable terms with.

Until I see clear evidence to the contrary, I consider the MG business to be a racket to exploit unsuspecting kids created and maintained with malicious intent. The "circumstantial evidence" is way too compelling to ignore for me.

I don't think that it's compelling at all. But to each their own.

Originally Posted by Scrooge McDuck

To be fair, I don't think anyone in this whole world would be happy forever just because a single wish of theirs is granted. (well, unless the wish is to be happy forever)

Well said.

Originally Posted by SagaraSouske

Let me use the line of argument consistently being used by QB Defender camp.

Your analogy here is very flawed because the magical girls are on record as to clearly stating the danger and threat level posed by witches, to both human civilians, and magical girls.

For your analogy here to be valid, it would be necessary for experienced magical girls to talk about how evil or predatory Kyubey is. And even Homura, of all people, didn't say that.

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised that Homura's stated take on Kyubey doesn't seem to have shifted the views of the "Kyubey is evil" camp at all. If there's anybody who would want Madoka to perceive Kyubey as rotten and evil, it would be Homura. And yet, her stated take on Kyubey is not terribly dissimilar at all from the defense that Kaijo, I, and some others have made of him.

Just like no matter how many hints, trends and events demonstrate how QB manipulates, deceives and appears to have good grasp of human psychology by taking full advantage of human weaknesses from MG candidates, we have people that believe his words as honest and true.

Unless I missed something, nothing he's said so far has been shown to be incorrect. So why should we think that what he's stated is incorrect? Keep in mind that it's not hard to imagine how giving false information could be very helpful to Kyubey in contracting magical girls. Yet that appears to be a line that he won't cross.

There is a difference between holding back pieces of information, and giving out false information. Both are deceptive, but the latter goes a bit father than the former.

The whole QB is not human, therefore not subject to human morality fail to address how QB was able to successfully manipulate and deceive humans into contracting with him. Without a good understanding of humans, how can one know how to manipulate and deceive them? At best one can say QB does not agree with or care about human morality but understand the concept enough to employ it against humans to do his job.

Kyubey has not made moral appeals. He has not said "Come join me in a glorious crusade to kill all the witches that are hurting humanity!"

Just because Kyubey knows what humans like (their wishes coming real!) and dislike (their soul being put into a gem) doesn't mean that he understands human morality.

Heck, I can understand what another human being likes by simply observing what makes him or her happy, and yet I still might not fully grasp his or her personal moral code in some cases.

People are ready to make any excuse or arguments to defend their position on QB and yet on witches they make no such attempts because defending witches with the same type of reasoning may invalidate their defense of QB.

No, we make no such attempts in defending witches because we have the words of magical girls (such as Mami, and even the arguments between Kyoko and Sayaka to some extent) to go by there. We have no such words to go by in declaring Kyubey evil. Indeed, the only magical girl to talk about him at all basically disagrees with you.

They readily take screen evidence and declare witches are evil and is a threat to humanity and ignore similar evidence where QB is concerned.

It's not just "screen evidence". It's also what the magical girls themselves have said about the witches.

Originally Posted by Decagon

There is a moral disconnect here between the perpetrator(s) of an action and the victim(s) of the action. Thanks to your guys' new "legal team" defense, I remembered this. The people you argue against most of the time seem to view QB from the perspective of the MGs--the supposed "victims" in this case,--and empathize with those characters through their inner turmoil, surprise revelations, and setbacks.

Spoiler for Sisko quotes:

I'm quite sure Sisko would be seen as evil by these Romulans.

Oh, sure, that's all fine. I wouldn't blame the surviving family members of those Romulans for perceiving Sisko as evil. People who have endured lost due to the actions of another person, even if those actions were not guided by evil intent, may still view that person as evil. I'm not disputing that.

But I don't see why the perception of the victims of an action is the only one that should count. In the case of Sisko's actions, there were countless beneficiaries to them as well, which is why I (as an outside viewer, and not a Romulan directly negatively affected by Sisko) would not call Sisko "evil". Countless Federation and Klingon lives were likely saved by Sisko's actions, just like Kyubey's actions have saved some human lives by there being magical girls to combat the dangerous witches.

Now, if Kyubey is playing both sides (i.e. intentionally creates both magical girls and witches), then he obviously gets no credit for saving lives that he endangered in the first place. I'm not saying otherwise. But until we have evidence of that (which we currently don't have at all, really), that's not something that can legitimately be factored into a discussion on him, imo.

From what we know right now, Kyubey's actions have both victims (just as Sisko's did), but also results in saved lives (just as Sisko's did).

After watching episode 7, I believe that Madoka, Sayaka, and Kyoko may think he is evil just for carrying out the rather literal dehumanizing take-your-soul-out-of-your-body soul gem process.

I don't see that as particularly dehumanizing given that Sayaka's body and personality seem as human as ever, but Ok.

I doubt that Madoka views him as evil after what Homura said to her.

I doubt that Kyoko views him as evil given how easily she got over the soul gem revelation.

Sayaka perhaps does view him as evil, though. That I could easily see.

Do you people who defend QB allow the characters to see QB as evil, or do you need them to use some equivalent of evil when describing QB to allow that?

I would have no problem whatsoever with one or more of the magical girls perceiving Kyubey as evil. But we here on this thread are outside the narrative, perceiving it from an omniscient third person perspective. I think it does a disservice to this excellent anime, and to our viewing experience, for us to not consider the perspectives of all the characters when making character assessments.

Originally Posted by Scrooge McDuck

As I said, Kyouko is an unfortunate case. So I'll just focus on Mami and Sayaka.

What if after their wish is granted, they did not become a magical girl.

1. Mami: she survives! And she has time for friends, herself, and a crush!
2. Sayaka: Kamijyo's hand is healed! Now she can properly confess to him without reservation!

See that in case of both of these girls, the direct cause of their misery is being a magical girl rather than some malicious wish-granting. With Mami having no time to socialize properly and Sayaka having reservations due to her "zombie" status.

Also, note that Mami herself said that she doesn't regret her wish. That being a magical girl sucks grand time, but sure still a whole lot better alternative that dying.

That's an interesting point. Perhaps happiness is kept in balance in this world due to the happiness brought about by the wishes canceling out with the sadness brought about by having to be a magical girl. So, in a sense, Sayaka traded her own long-term happiness for Kamijo's, hence overall balanced is maintained. Perhaps this is why it's been argued in the anime that it's bad to make a wish for anybody but yourself. Since you pay for the wish with your own sadness, it's a serious net loss for you if you don't at least get some personal happiness from your wish.