Madoka Magica - Character Discussion - Kyubei

[Seihai]

Originally Posted by novalysis

Does anyone fancy Kyubey Burger here? I wonder how he taste like , when chopped into a patty.

He will taste like lots and lots and lots of despair (grief seeds).

[Arkeus]

Originally Posted by Vanish

He will taste like lots and lots and lots of despair (grief seeds).

Unless he just uses the grief seeds to make other witches, as he prefers high quality coke (soul gems).

[Kaijo]

It really is true; those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Because there is a very accurate historical representation here.

For those of you who remember the American Civil War, Lincoln had a problem: his generals weren't very good. He kept replacing them because they couldn't really win enough battles to win the war.

All except one: Ulysses S. Grant.

Grant won battles, and even beat the venerable tactician Lee. How? He threw more men at the problem, such that he got the nickname "The Butcher" because of it. His other generals beseeched Lincoln to replace Grant. They tried to point out all of his flaws, including saying he drank too much. Lincoln's response?

"Well, find out what he's drinking so I can feed it to the rest of my troops!"

Much like Kyube, Grant's actions were morally questionable. But much like the current situation, there was a war going on and his methods brought real, tangible results. Without Grant, the world would be very different today; American might not be one country.

In the real world, idealism doesn't work much of the time. And sometimes you have to dirty your hands and engage in questionable methods to save the day. Ever watch 24? Is Jack Bauer evil? Is Grant evil?

Regardless of Kyube's possible intentions and motivations, his methods do get results. So however questionable one might find his methods from a moral standpoint, one has to admit that the end result is ultimately good.

The people who believe he is evil, need to take a look at their moral high horse, and figure out if they have a better way to win the war. If there is a better way, then we have room to talk. Until then, as much as you may not like him, and as much as you may question his motives, he is doing good. If you were to kill Kyube or stop him, you'd leave humanity defenseless against witches.

War ain't pretty, but then again, most people here have had the good fortune to never step foot inside a war zone. It brings out questionable morals in everyone.

[willyvereb]

Anyways, you can't forget that Kyuubey is very sneaky and manipulative. At best he's a Well Intentioned Extremist but probably either the minion of or the Big Bad himself.

[Arkeus]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Regardless of Kyube's possible intentions and motivations, his methods do get results. So however questionable one might find his methods from a moral standpoint, one has to admit that the end result is ultimately good.

No, it doesn't get results.

His methods apparently kill witches, not familiars. In fact, the way his method is set up, it's more and more likely they are made to make sure humans dies a lot for witches to be born and grief seeds to be collected by himself.

[Neki Ecko]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

It really is true; those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Because there is a very accurate historical representation here.

For those of you who remember the American Civil War, Lincoln had a problem: his generals weren't very good. He kept replacing them because they couldn't really win enough battles to win the war.

All except one: Ulysses S. Grant.

Grant won battles, and even beat the venerable tactician Lee. How? He threw more men at the problem, such that he got the nickname "The Butcher" because of it. His other generals beseeched Lincoln to replace Grant. They tried to point out all of his flaws, including saying he drank too much. Lincoln's response?

"Well, find out what he's drinking so I can feed it to the rest of my troops!"

Much like Kyube, Grant's actions were morally questionable. But much like the current situation, there was a war going on and his methods brought real, tangible results. Without Grant, the world would be very different today; American might not be one country.

In the real world, idealism doesn't work much of the time. And sometimes you have to dirty your hands and engage in questionable methods to save the day. Ever watch 24? Is Jack Bauer evil? Is Grant evil?

Regardless of Kyube's possible intentions and motivations, his methods do get results. So however questionable one might find his methods from a moral standpoint, one has to admit that the end result is ultimately good.

The people who believe he is evil, need to take a look at their moral high horse, and figure out if they have a better way to win the war. If there is a better way, then we have room to talk. Until then, as much as you may not like him, and as much as you may question his motives, he is doing good. If you were to kill Kyube or stop him, you'd leave humanity defenseless against witches.

War ain't pretty, but then again, most people here have had the good fortune to never step foot inside a war zone. It brings out questionable morals in everyone.

I totally agree with you but I want to added few things to that. You was talking about the Civil War, and about Ulysses S. Grant how he used alot of men but those soliders knew that some of them wouldnt come back alive unless by luck and they knew the risk. But those girl didnt know the risk at all and consequences about that. QB knew that he can try to do anything he can to get those contacts and he was there at right at a moment (Mami car accident or Sayaka b/f flipping off at her. I think he isnt evil but he is getting there. I was thinking he might like Nagi from Mai-Hime, but he is a Draco with White Fur.

[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by Arkeus

No, it doesn't get results.

His methods apparently kill witches, not familiars. In fact, the way his method is set up, it's more and more likely they are made to make sure humans dies a lot for witches to be born and grief seeds to be collected by himself.

I'm sorry, you said he doesn't get results, and then you state that he does, considering killing witches does mean he gets results. Contradicting yourself isn't a good way to debate. And, oh, familiars get killed, too, since MG's can kill them as well. Mami and Sayaka were up to killing them, and they can't be the only ones who do.

And you still dodge the big issue: What is your better method for dealing with the witches? You don't have one. You can sit and judge without offering any better solutions, just like most.

Originally Posted by Neki Ecko

I totally agree with you but I want to added few things to that. You was talking about the Civil War, and about Ulysses S. Grant how he used alot of men but those soliders knew that some of them wouldnt come back alive unless by luck and they knew the risk. But those girl didnt know the risk at all and consequences about that. QB knew that he can try to do anything he can to get those contacts and he was there at right at a moment (Mami car accident or Sayaka b/f flipping off at her. I think he isnt evil but he is getting there. I was thinking he might like Nagi from Mai-Hime, but he is a Draco with White Fur.

I get what you're saying, but the girls already knew the death risk up front. Really, the only thing this new information tells us, is that the girls are hardier than we first believed. So it's a bit like you just get told that you're stronger than you once were, and somehow this is a bad thing.

[FlavorOfLife]

Originally Posted by Arkeus

No, it doesn't get results.

His methods apparently kill witches, not familiars. In fact, the way his method is set up, it's more and more likely they are made to make sure humans dies a lot for witches to be born and grief seeds to be collected by himself.

Eh good point. This would show that Kyubei has 0 interest in protecting human lives since the pull factors for mahou shojo would be towards Kyoko's viewpoint of letting them feed

[panzerfan]

I am not entirely sure if Kyubey has achieved performance that would be satisfactory to his own metrics to be honest. Generally speaking, results come from outside one's own administration, and not within. To make matter worse, what the observers deem as performance may be the opposite to what the organization has set as goals for themselves, if I may call upon the ghost of the late Peter Drucker.

Applying that in the context of the prior few posts, one must now be warned that performance, or results will be judged by independent metrics, depending on the perspective. The hazard is ultimately that of which perspective is the most applicable. Ultimately, because of the story progression, the most important spectator is Madoka in this series, so it would be how she would evaluate the performance of Kyubey that would steer the direction of the story, with our independent lenses being merely for our reference.

[alu546]

You know, after 6 episodes of watching Kyuube I have come to one conclusion that describes him perfectly: Kyuube is a dick.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

In the real world, idealism doesn't work much of the time[1]. And sometimes you have to dirty your hands and engage in questionable methods to save the day. Ever watch 24? Is Jack Bauer evil? Is Grant evil?

Regardless of Kyube's possible intentions and motivations, his methods do get results. So however questionable one might find his methods from a moral standpoint, one has to admit that the end result is ultimately good.[2]

The people who believe he is evil, need to take a look at their moral high horse, and figure out if they have a better way to win the war. If there is a better way, then we have room to talk. Until then, as much as you may not like him, and as much as you may question his motives, he is doing good. If you were to kill Kyube or stop him, you'd leave humanity defenseless against witches.

War ain't pretty, but then again, most people here have had the good fortune to never step foot inside a war zone. It brings out questionable morals in everyone.[3]

1. Does it really justifies abandoning them altogether then? Moral isn't our nature. In my opinion, human nature is a lot more destructive and moral is there to do some preventions or damage control. For example, good people feel remorse if they commit evil.

2. Some German could say the same about Hitler had he been successful in bringing Germany the rise of power and prosperity they dreamed of in WW2, but Americans wouldn't say so. Heck, we have a more definite example: Stalin. He was successful in bringing rise to the Soviet, but at what cost? Like he said himself, the death toll that he saw everyday was merely statistics to him. Though his goal was good for the country, I wouldn't call him a good man.

Morals and causes are different; Stalin was an example of an evil person with a good cause. Also, each and everybody's perspective of a 'good cause' differ from one another, so there really isn't a 'universally good' cause. What they should be able to share is moral. I believe people are basically good and should be able to tell apart good from evil without the help of logic. Circumstances are what made them otherwise.

3. War is what corrupts moral, not the other way around. When people go to war, they don't bring moral, they bring human nature and instinct; instinct to survive. This instinct is morally neutral, so most of the time soldiers couldn't be hold responsible morally for their actions in war. But, there were cases where former soldiers couldn't really blend well in the community after their services, which could be caused by moral trauma or damage from the war. Also, there is a reason why the international law regarding war was invented; and I believe it is to lessen the moral damage the war caused for both who were involved and weren't.

------

Somehow this discussion is getting hugely off topic, but I also somehow think it's necessary to even the grounds on the topic of QB's alignment. From what I see everyone's definition and values of moral are different from each other so maybe this kind of clash is bound to happen in a topic regarding morals.

[Triple_R]

At this juncture, I would consider Kyubey "Lawful Neutral".

He is clearly an agent of the system. He also strikes me as preferring order to chaos.

Doing his job/fulfilling his role also seems way more important to Kyubey than intentionally doing good or intentionally doing evil.


Good question on moral alignments, erneiz_hyde

I'd be interested to see what other people make of his moral alignment.

[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

1. Does it really justifies abandoning them altogether then? Moral isn't our nature. In my opinion, human nature is a lot more destructive and moral is there to do some preventions or damage control. For example, good people feel remorse if they commit evil.

Who is abandoning anyone? You have a choice: let the witches prey upon humans unmolested, or have girls become MG's in order to fight them. Which do YOU pick? And note that this is a question that a lot of the "Kyube is evil!" crowed doesn't want to answer, let alone face.

2. Some German could say the same about Hitler had he been successful in bringing Germany the rise of power and prosperity they dreamed of in WW2, but Americans wouldn't say so. Heck, we have a more definite example: Stalin. He was successful in bringing rise to the Soviet, but at what cost? Like he said himself, the death toll that he saw everyday was merely statistics to him. Though his goal was good for the country, I wouldn't call him a good man.

*sigh* Godwinned another thread. I usually hate the guy, but he's right about every thread eventually coming up with Hitler and the Nazi's.

In any event, your analogies aren't quite accurate. Hitler did bring Germany out of it's depression, which was good, but he did that by attacking neighbors. There were other ways to accomplish the goal, but in Madoka, we only know of one way. And also, Germany were aggressors, taking their prosperity at the expense of people who didn't deserve it. So they would correspond to the witches, since they are the aggressors and taking their prosperity from humans who don't deserve it. In short, are you with the witches/nazis, or against them?

There was more than one way to bring a "rise to the Soviet" whereas again, we currently only know one way to protect humanity from witches. Also, the "rise of the Soviet" wasn't as good as you might want to paint it. A lot of Russians suffered under it, and arguably might have been better off without the government taking everything from them.

Morals and causes are different; Stalin was an example of an evil person with a good cause.

No, he wasn't. He was all about wealth and power to himself. Also, he was paranoid as hell. If you're trying to equate Stalin with Kyube, it won't work. Kyube is currently defending humanity. Stalin ruled with an iron fist for the benefit of himself and his cronies, actively hurting and killing humanity in the process. Kyube isn't killing anyone; he's saving lives.

And I'm still confused as hell that people would argue that's a bad thing. Are we really rooting for the witches here? You know what, I almost could, heh. It might be nice to see a witch rape Madoka's whiny ass, and then abuse Homura for her mind games.

Also, each and everybody's perspective of a 'good cause' differ from one another, so there really isn't a 'universally good' cause.

You might wanna think that over a bit more. You really wanna argue that saving human lives isn't a good cause? You wanna tell me that letting innocent humans suffer is somehow desirable?

3. War is what corrupts moral, not the other way around. When people go to war, they don't bring moral, they bring human nature and instinct; instinct to survive.

You are partially correct; war does corrupt. But that's the nature of war. Our own troops committed horrible atrocities during WW2, but I bet you'd still regard them as the good guys. Would you rather have them play all nice, and risk losing the war to the Germans/Italians/Japanese?

Somehow this discussion is getting hugely off topic, but I also somehow think it's necessary to even the grounds on the topic of QB's alignment. From what I see everyone's definition and values of moral are different from each other so maybe this kind of clash is bound to happen in a topic regarding morals.

Seems pretty clear cut to me. Either one calls Kyube evil for creating our only line of defense against witches, a very clear threat. Or one grows up and realizes that sometimes some morally gray things might need to be done in a war, because if we do nothing, then we let people we care about suffer and die.

Trying to pretty it up and confuse the issue with morality is simply word play designed to distract from the issue. People ARE dying. What do you propose we do about that?

[panzerfan]

I do indeed question why would Kyubey have gone through such extraordinary length to essentially entice individuals to wage an underground war, with the stakes being lives of people that frankly aren't the same specie as Kyubey. What benefits exist for him or for whatever entity he serves for Kyubey to participate in such a fashion? As it is, he may very well behold nothing to humanity for him to be involved in the situation of witches getting their prey.

I will reiterate yet again that I wonder if it can be called moral, if one is not human, to act against witches consuming human beings, if that is the natural pecking order. Justification for human beings to defend themselves against witches is not lacking, but that may not be the case for the non-human observer(s).

Unfortunately, I cannot rein in on the alignment of Kyubey at all, even from my shallow metrics. I have too little to go on personally to form an opinion about even his behavior, let along his ever elusive mentality.

EDIT: On the matter of being caught in the morality of war with examples of the great man of that century prior, let this matter be. Forming an opinion about this fictional conflict between humanity and witches is premature if one possess so few information about the hostile. Calling that they prey on human and that they are borne of curses, and seeing them munching on human flesh are still superficial facets.

[Kaijo]

Well, if his name really isn't Kyuubi, which is Japanese for 9-tails, then it is close enough. The six-tailed shadow that was visible while he turned Sayaka into an MG lends credence to that.

So, his real form is a kitsune (or at least, he's based off that). Japanese spirits are interesting creatures, and so you'd have to get into the mythology of Japanese spirits and kitsune in general to really understand. That are truly capricious beings, with a wide range of attitudes and reasons not all of which are easily discernible. Kitsune in particular tend to either be tricksters, or wise and benevolent.

If Kyube is the latter, then it makes sense; he really is doing this for the humans. If the former, then he's toying around with people simply for amusement. But given his speech on not understanding human emotions or why they get so upset, he doesn't strike me as being this type, at least when you consider Japanese mythology.

The last interesting point is, as noted above, that his name sounds like "9-tails" but his shadow only showed 6 tails. Where are the other three? Is he trying to get three more tails, and somehow all of this plays a part in that (perhaps enough grief seeds give him another tail)?

Figure out his kitsune nature, and we'll be one step closer.

[Avvesione]

It was interesting to see everyone jump on the 'Kyubey is evil' bandwagon at the beginning but it appears the other side is gaining momentum as the series progresses. I don't see Kyubey as being evil anymore, but I still see him as being dishonest, unethical, and selfish. I certainly don't like him as a character but I wonder if there is anything he can do that will be able to remove his tag as 'evil' before the series is over.

It's nice to see someone like Kaijo speak out for the other camp. I'd be interested to see a poll on people's thoughts about Kyubey being evil or misunderstood now that the season is halfway over.

[panzerfan]

Even if the very name of our furry fellow can be penned as '九尾', Kaijo's own caveat in prior post must be misquoted as a disclaimer; a cake may be just a cake. For all intents and purposes however, this mythical beast which has been invoked that allegedly contributed the fall of the Shang Dynasty in China as it masqueraded as a beauty and enticed a corrupted son of heaven, can even be... sadistic and malicious. Maybe quite humane in spectrum of behavior.

(I say this while wondering if a shota is fine too... given the gender of Kyubey)

Kyubey is fascinating. I have a strong desire to actually have a discourse with this fictional creature, moreso than any other mascot character that I have ever encountered. Truth be told, the moment when Madoka hurled Sayaka onto the truck and made Kyubey disclose the revelations of the magical lich girls, I was thankful for the explanation...

[MeoTwister5]

I was initially curious about one thing: If QB is impartial regarding the relative lack of civility between MGs and, all things being equal, doesn't concern himself with whatever internal bickering the current stable of MGs have, then why warn Madoka of Sayaka being in danger? Homura does have a point that Sayaka is more or less inefficient at what her job, and she did just fail to track down a familiar earlier that day, but if there's one thing QBs consistent at it's that he's being strangely considerate at warning Madoka regarding her friends.

QB does go through whole lengths to recruit warriors for this war, but after getting them he seems more content with unleashing the hounds of war and letting them do as they please. He gives them access to power but takes no controls nor responsibility for who they fight and how they fight. In contrast he is surprisingly careful about Madoka, which may not be surprising because she above everyone else is his goal of recruiting, but then he extends a very different mode of treatment when handling her even if it means acting very differently from how he treat the other contracted MGs.

So if he's willing enough to break his usual protocol for Madoka's sake and seems to actively try to ensure that Madoka at least remain in some consistent mental state, then this is enough to strongly suggest that he's after Madoka not simply due to her "power", but because she serves a special function no other MG can serve. At this point only QB knows what that is.

[Mentar]

I don't see much movement in either direction, except that the more we learn about the workings of QB and the racket, the clearer it becomes what a sucker the girls have been played, and that QB willingly withheld critical information from them pre-contract.

One group - I call them the QB apologists - essentially argues that whatever deceit QB is employing to recruit girls, it's still okay because he's working for the Greater Good. And if he wouldn't do what he's doing, things would be much worse, which excuses everything he does. The "it's a war, you gotta do what you gotta do as a means to an end" crowd. For them, someone like Jack Bauer is a good person, a hero.

One group - I call them the QB relativists - argues that while QB does evil things, he's "not evil" himself. He's just doing his job. He's "amoral", but even so, since he doesn't wear a mustache, cackles evilly and revels openly in how well he screwed others over, he's "neutral". In other words, because QB shows no indication that he'd understand what he's doing to be bad, he's not evil himself, no matter what he does. They concentrate on the _intention_ rather than the deeds.

And finally, one group - I call them the QB moralists - argues that the concept of "evil" is decided by a person's deeds. For them, a person who does evil out of a lack of care, and who doesn't openly recognize that he's doing something bad, is still evil. I belong to this group. Consequently, for me someone like Jack Bauer is a war criminal and madman. For us, the intention is secondary, it's the deeds that count.

So, storywise there's not really much movement here. The more we learn about QB's racket, the more the apologists come under pressure. At the same time, because regardless of the ugly news we receive about the racket, QB shows no trace of a guilty conscience, for those people who concentrate on the intention of someone, QB becomes more "neutral". After all, he's shown to do uglier and uglier things without even understanding why people could dislike it. And the moralists like me can't for the life of the lord understand how people could possibly call someone neutral who does what he does.

Well, the racket revelations will continue, and I'll just say that I'd be extremely surprised if ep6's zombie revelation would turn out to be the biggest skeleton in QB's locker. I think the next revelations will be that the soul gem fouls up by itself even if you don't spend magic, and that a MG who doesn't purify her soul gem becomes more and more "evil" and eventually turns into a witch. That might have interesting repercussions on the groups.

[Decagon]

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

So if he's willing enough to break his usual protocol for Madoka's sake and seems to actively try to ensure that Madoka at least remain in some consistent mental state, then this is enough to strongly suggest that he's after Madoka not simply due to her "power", but because she serves a special function no other MG can serve. At this point only QB knows what that is.

I find the point about keeping Madoka in some consistent mental state very interesting. In episode 6 when she finally seems to calm down after having a talk with her mother, QB visits her and then at the confrontation he tells her that she just threw her best friend off a bridge .

Edit: oh, and if it hasn't been brought up already, I read elsewhere that there's these things called demilichs that can create soul gems.