[Solace]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

Well, Urubuchi said Homura's going to be the main the character of the third movie. He may be trolling but for now that's pretty much all we have to speculate on.

Gen always trolls. Madoka was the title character, but the focus of the story was not really on her, so much as it was about her, until the end. Otherwise it was the other girls who drove the narrative. Homura for all of it, Mami for part, Kyouko for a bit and especially Sayaka for a good number of episodes. I do expect Homura to play the major role this time, as the driving element will likely be as you say below.

Like I said, Homura's efforts weren't pointless. As a side effect of what she tried to do, she made it possible for Madoka to achieve her goals. But Homura herself couldn't achieve her own goals. She never wanted Madoka to end up like she did. She wanted Madoka to live, as a human, but she couldn't achieve that.

She couldn't save the girl, not in the way she want it to, and that's why she decided to protect her world instead.

I don't disagree with this assessment.

That's good enough premise to explore in the movie, and they don't need to mess with what the series already covered to do so.

It is a good premise to explore in the movie, as a thematic element about her character. However I do not expect the story to have that as the only element, and that is why I brought my speculation up. I do not consider my speculation as anything but, and I even said that some of it was out on a limb. I do believe, however, that Madoka will return to play an important role based on her wish and her words, and that mixed in with the theme/plot of the movie will be the nature of the MG system itself, and its broken nature.

Until the system is dealt with properly, there is no real miracle, no happy ending. All Madoka's wish really did was buy time.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

The quality of life is different. She's a cosmic, universal entity. She doesn't have challenges the same way we do, and her perspective is literally infinite, so there's nothing left for her to learn. She's basically won the game, or atleast stopped playing.

You're assuming. We have no real clue how she is now.

HOLY ASSUMPTIONS, BATMAN!

No, you're completely wrong. I don't really care who plays protagonist other than the fact that Madoka really shouldn't because she's no longer in a frame of reference we can relate to. Humans can't empathize with whatever business real gods are up to. She has more in common with Cthulhu now than she does with us, despite her benevolence and human empathy.

Again, you're assuming. We have no real clue how she is now.

Madoka will never be part of this world again, and she'll never, in the way Homura desired, be with her family and loved ones. The smiling, radiant soul of Madoka Kaname is forever gone from this world and no one will ever truly remember her as they once did.

One more time, this is not certain. You are making it definite, but the story did not.

Homura was not okay with that. She's coping with it, but it's not what her goal was, and it's very easy to conclude that she still feels she's compensating for having technically failed. It's just that she understands and respects Madoka's choices enough, and tries to have faith in her like she asked.

And it's not like it's really because of Homura herself that any of this all came about. It was a side-effect of her actions in a way she could've never fathomed. Her involvement in Madoka's ascension is much too passive to be a proper resolution.

As with what Kazu said, I'm not really disagreeing here.

There's no narrative triumph in having the protagonist succeed by bumbling about and finding the Win Button on accident.

and Madoka's wish was a Win Button. Madoka's pressing it was intentional, but her having the Win Button to press was a random fuckup on Homura's part.

Madoka didn't find the Win Button, she found the Pause Button.

The fact of the matter is that Homura is not self-actualized, like Madoka is. Even Sayaka can be argued to have self-actualized in her afterlife scene with Madoka and Kyousuke, but Homura is basically settling.

Not disagreeing here either.

Regardless, all I was doing was pondering the ending of the anime, and noting the inconsistencies between Kyubey's analysis of Madoka's wish and what really happened, my own analysis from episode 10 and how it might tie into the return of Witches despite her wish, and finally extrapolating an admittedly out there scenario in which Madoka can return to Homura as a mortal being instead of being stuck on some other plane of existence.

I'm not really sure where you guys got the idea that I was playing down Homura's role, or playing up Madoka's, or anything like that. As I said before, until we get more information, everything is pretty much up in the air, anything and everything could happen. Heck, I'm sure people are arguing in circles about Sayaka being back from the dead or not, somewhere on the internet.