[Akashin]

Oh for crying out loud...

Originally Posted by FlavorOfLife

The first choice: Healing violin boy's hand. At this point, she knew the difference between what she wanted and what would sound morally nice as a wish. This is ignoring the fact that violin boy is not going to die (unlike Mami's case) and another dream can be found (else most of those children who wanted to be a soldier/policeman/doctor/scientist/etc when they grow up would have killed themselves when they ended up working as something else. At 14 years old, you have plenty of time to change your "dream")

I get the feeling you're making the same error everybody else is. That is to say: How, on any reasonable level, is losing a talent that was both his life and something he was (presumably) well on his way to being a professional at (if he wasn't already; he certainly was in terms of skill) comparable to a child learning he probably won't be a doctor? His violin playing was far from a fanciful dream kids have; it was a reality that meant everything to him. Yeah in theory he could have moved on, but with his heart so firmly set on violin playing, her making the decision to give that back to him is not something I will ever hold against her.

Are there more important things she could have wished for? Certainly. But this was plenty important enough.

Second choice: Lying to herself she would never regret her choice. If you truly would never regret your choice, you would not need to tell yourself that because you would accept any consequences that came, come hell or high water. Already her words "how could i regret this" during the violin boy's rooftop performance betrayed her doubt

Matter of opinion, really. You see her doubting herself, I see her ascertaining that it's not something she could ever possibly regret. And unless I'm mistaken, she never outright regrets healing him. She regrets a lot of the choices she made, but not that.

I could be mistaken. Don't think I am, though.

Third choice: Lying to herself that she has to give up violin boy because shes now a zombie when it was her own fear of rejection that stopped her. Note the long duration that she spent wth violin boy prior to changing and not a peep on liking him because she wanted him to tell her instead and thus be free from rejection.

...

Eh?

What evidence is there at all that suggests her despising being a "zombie" was a facade to avoid facing rejection? Say what you want about her fear of rejection (I vaguely remember her saying something about intending to tell him once he was out of the hospital, but my mind might be making things up on me), but her reaction to being a zombie was in no way a facade.

Fourth choice: Lying to herself that she is better than the other Mahou Shoujo (other than Mami) and an ally of justice even after Kyoko tore her mask off with her "break the boy's legs" speech, showing that her basic wish itself was for a selfish motive

*sigh*... You're combining two arguments and trying to make them the same thing. Yes her basic wish was on a level selfish. But that has nothing to do with her perceived superiority over other Puella Magi. Her perceived superiority came from the belief that all Puella Magi barring Mami were like Kyoko (and with only Kyoko and Homura for reference, I can see why she'd think so; she had every right to believe being a Puella Magi is something girls did selfishly). She didn't lie to herself here; she just resolved to, you know, have a heart. Which in her eyes was a rare thing among Puella Magi.

That her wish was selfish does absolutely nothing to change this. Selfish wish =/= selfish Puella Magi.

Final choice: Lying to herself that she is rejecting Homura's help because she is suspiscious rather than that she has given up on herself and waiting to die.

I'll concede to this point, though I'm hesitant to call this lying as such. She did, after all, not trust Homura in the slightest--that isn't a lie. And as we see less than half an episode later, she certainly isn't afraid of facing her own lack of will to live.

None of this is due to the magical despair vs hope balance. This is simply the result of self deception. Compare and contrast Kyoko and Homura (both more popular than Sayaka).

Kyoko saw her wish blow itself up but she did not give up on herself because she admitted she made a mistake in her way of thinking and tried to rectify it. Not that her ultra selfish thinking was correct but it implies she understands and admits her initial mistake and thus faces the truth (ie i fuc*ed up)..

Homura is even more obvious. Every timeline she fails, she thinks on her mistakes and tries again. If she was Sayaka's personality, she would have blamed the entire thing on Kyubei, hid in a corner crying and kill herself by charging Walpugis Night in a "glorious" final strike

I'll tentatively agree that this has nothing to do with the despair/hope balance. Which is to say, I agree on the grounds that the only thing we can judge Sayaka on is what we see, and what we see is grief all of her own making. None of it was magical per se. That said, for all we know it could be that very balance that is driving her fall. We can't know.

And on that note, there is absolutely no way you could know how Sayaka might react to being in Homura's shoes. I'm not sure why you would make this argument, anyway; Homura herself shows how an utterly innocent and cowardly girl gradually transformed into a gun-wielding, emotionally stunted killing machine. Without seeing it with our own eyes, there is positively no way to know how Sayaka might develop under those same conditions. I refuse to consider this as a realistic argument simply for that reason.

Really, I see to a certain extent where your arguments are coming from, but with a couple exceptions I don't really see her actions as lying to herself...