Character analysis of Miki Sayaka
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Preface
In 2011, the most epic anime of all time was released with no warning. Its name is Puella Magi Madoka Magica. The philosophical and relatable plot made it a hit right after its public debut. Not only had the story left a mark on the heart of its audience but it also raised a trend of academic research and literary criticism regarding the abundant reference and symbolism from the talented Gen Urobuchi. Besides that, the show also got a bunch of well-writing characters. From the heroic and amicable Madoka to the seemingly cool-hearted but dedicated Homura, all of the magical girls in the show are realistic in their way. This time, I want to introduce the most tragic character throughout the original series and sequel movie-Sayaka Miki. Most of the western analyses on her were all about how she falls for Kyubey’s trap and became its victim or how she is a hero in the sequel movie while the demon Homura took all the blame for evil and selfishness. However, Dualism is applicable in lesser issues than the philosopher assumed, especially when it comes to the basic moral question of what’s right and what’s wrong. The development of Sayaka as a character is more complicated than most western anime fans thought. The reason why they tend to lose a certain part of Sayaka’s description is obvious, they don’t understand Japanese culture and even nationalities. From my point of view, anime is the carrier of the author’s thoughts, and Urobuchi san inevitably used some Japanese perspective in the writing since he is also Japanese. In this article, I will analyze the character of Sayaka Miki in the original series and sequel movie. In the end, an answer of what her character story tries to tell us will be given as a conclusion. To make the inference and analysis more convincing, quite a few academic theories and Japanese culture research will be used.
Main body
Main part: The destination of hypocrisy-from TV series episode 1 to 8
From the very start of the first episode, we can see that Sayaka is a girl with a tomboyish appearance. Aside from that, she also behaved like the boy in the common gender stereotype, was always energetic, and said things carelessly. And based on the first episode, a specific feature in Sayaka’s character can be seen. There are three clues. First, during the route to the school, Madoka and Sayaka just casually chatted at first. However, after Madoka said that she wants a love letter, Sayaka became excited and furthering her little “harassment”. And the second clue is when Homura appeared as a transfer student. It’s undeniable that Homura has a strong impression, and she also said a lot of weird stuff to Madoka. But it’s also a fact that other students weren’t affected by her. Even Hitomi, the one in their trio, also didn’t get bothered by Homura’s appearance. Compared to them, Sayaka, who’s not even the one straightly involved, was more triggered than all the other classmates. She considered Homura as some weird girl and overreacted to show how much she disliked her. The third clue is when Madoka saved Kyubey by accident. Upon the time when Madoka is about to contact the white creature on the ground, Homura appears and shows the intention of killing Kyubey. Out of nowhere Sayaka showed and helped Madoka get away, though she was still listening to music a few minutes ago. Based on the clues above, it can be seen that her behavior is actually inconsistent. Her actions don’t have a certain pattern, it can jump from one thing to another totally unrelated thing in an instant. From this perception of Sayaka, we could say that she is very irrational. To be clearer, she is the type who gets affected by emotion easily. All the clues above show common ground. When things happened, it’s the emotion that drove Sayaka first, rather than norms. However, these emotions aren’t controlled by her. Come to think of it, all the emotions above didn't originally exist. In short, her emotions were controlled by “the other” -a philosophical concept:
In phenomenology, the terms the Other and the Constitutive Other identify the "other" human being, in their differences from the Self, as being a cumulative, constituting factor in the self-image of a person; as an acknowledgment of being real; hence, the Other is dissimilar to and the opposite of the Self, of Us, and of the Same. (Wikipedia: Other(philosophy)
Based on the definition cited, it can be seen that “other” is someone “different” from yourself. Though it was meant for distinguishing oneself from the other, it’s still a solid concept to generalize the things outside oneself. And thus, we can define Madoka, Homura, and Kyubey as the “other” for Sayaka since they share the distinguishable difference from her. The notion of “other” basically worked like this. Madoka is the first “other” of Sayaka. When Sayaka was in her natural mood and chatting with friends, Madoka randomly said she wanted some love letter, this made Sayaka became more excited, and this emotion appeared not because Sayaka herself had done something, but for Madoka’s words. And her anger in school also wasn’t because she herself had directly done or contact anything, but for the appearance of “other”, which means Homura is the reason for her anger. In the end, it was Kyubey changed her mood of relaxing. The ostensible appearance of Kyubey is weak and cute, this feature combined with her hatred toward Homura became the feeling of “justice”, and this drove Sayaka to help the seemly cute but actually shitty creature.
The so-called “sense of justice” then became the most important part in her character development. Though this idea was officially given in episode 5, the previous episodes already showed some factors regarding it. In the second episode, Sayaka had her sense of justice grew in a weird way, it could be seen clearly from the line she said after found out that she herself actually didn’t have any wish:
“If we can’t think of anything, it just means that we really haven’t had anything that bad happened to us. We have had too much given to us and have become dull and stupid. It makes me wander, why us? Don’t you think it’s unfair? I am sure there are other people who’d really want a chance like this.” (episode2: 12:13-12:37)
Based on this part of the speech, a strange character of Sayaka can be found. In short, the fact that she got the chance of having a wish granted is totally her own issue. This fact didn’t do any harm to other people, either. However, while all she needs to do is deal with her own stuff, Sayaka turns out feeling guilty toward the “others” who are poorer and actually need a miracle. When it comes to this part, most of the reviewers tend to take a positive attitude toward it. This speech made by Sayaka would be considered as her great morality of thinking about poor people. In contrast to this attitude, I would rather say this is actually a bad thing. What’s more, I had created a term to describe this situation. Compared to the Persecutory delusion which one will constantly feel being threatened, the term I created for Sayaka is Perpetrator delusion. There’s no such term, so I will give a proper explanation. Basically, this term means that one couldn’t help but think of him/herself as the “Perpetrator” who caused harm to others. In other words, this kind of delusion tends to have one blame themselves for others suffering, even though they have nothing to do with that. It can't be said that this is a nationality of Japanese. However, this kind of delusion can be seen in nearly every anime. Even in the slice of life genre, it’s still not rare to see some character feeling guilty for a thing that has nothing to do with them. So, when a certain feature becomes that common, it’s inevitable that one will associate it with the deep-rooted culture. Based on the work of Ruth Benedict, this Perpetrator delusion did have something to do with the oriental tradition thoughts:
…oriental nations turn the coin to the other side: they are debtors to the ages. Much of what westerner name ancestor worship is not truly worship and not wholly directed toward ancestors: it is a ritual avowal of man’s great indebtedness to all that has gone before. Moreover, he is indebted not only to the past; every day-by-day contact with other people increases his indebtedness in the present. (The Chrysanthemum and the Sword p98)
Based on the scripts cited, it can be seen that Japanese people have a very different attitude toward their own position in society compared to western people. Japanese people didn’t consider their own existence as fully independent and able to control their own actions. Instead, they considered themselves owed a lot of things to society. For example, they will not simply think of buying a chair as their own reward after earning money. They will also thank the one who made the chair since they owed the maker the time of production. Furthermore, it’s the society that allows the individual to live their life. Because everyone had done their job, society remained a steady place to stay. That is why the day-by-day contact will increase one’s debt since one can use a lot of resources from the most basic food to the supporting feeling or happy emotions provided by close friends and family. In short, by just simply living we are already accepting other's help. Western culture seldom takes time to think on this part, but Japanese people are fully aware of this concept and take it seriously. This type of culture enables them to put themselves in other’s shoes. Japanese people are considerate toward other people’s feelings since they “owed” society quite a lot. In the positive perspective, this made them more obedient toward not only the actual law but the seemingly abstract “atmosphere”, which allowed Japanese society to remain in ostensible harmony. However, sometimes they are “too” considerate about others feelings, it’s really possible that the thought of “owing others” will swallow them into the pond of unnecessary guilt. Since they owed the society, this idea can be overstretched to let one take all the blame for the sufferings of others. In the case of this show, the reason why Sayaka felt guilty for having the wish wasn’t really because she is a kind-hearted person. It was the nationality of Japan that made her consider herself as indebted to society, and for sure this concept got overstretched and became a kind of Perpetrator delusion. Due to this, the unnecessary guilt emerged and bit away at her.
To a certain extent, Sayaka’s Perpetrator delusion did contribute to the making of her “justice”, but still, things still got built up in episodes 3 and 4. In episode 3, Sayaka witnessed the cruel death of Mami Tomoe, her beloved and respected senior. She finally realized that something needs to be paid in order to have the wish granted, and she started to take the chance of having the wish granted into serious consideration. But in episode 4, things turned different, and she just couldn’t escape the fate of becoming the magical girl in the end. In episode 4, we can see that Sayaka went for Kyousuke again. To soothe his depression, Sayaka tried to discuss music with him. Sayaka had no intention to hurt this boy, but he suddenly became angry and hurt his disabled hand. In every aspect, Sayaka’s good intentions can be seen, and it’s the boy himself who broke down while blaming Sayaka for the fault. Just like the situation in episode 2. If one clarified it in detail, it would be obvious that the incident in episode 4 was nothing but a boy feeling sour and misunderstood the intentions of others. Thus, Sayaka has nothing to do with what happened in front of her. But this time the stimulation was stronger. She directly saw a person hurt himself in front of her eyes. And the Perpetrator delusion inevitably had her blaming herself. This had at first further proved the analysis on her character in the second paragraph, which says that Sayaka is the type who gets her emotions controlled by “others”. What’s more, her feeling guilt for Kyousuke leads to the making of her wish, which is healing his hand. Combined with the Perpetrator delusion, Sayaka finally reached an extent in which she literally traded her soul for the sake of “others”, rather than herself. At this point, most people would consider her a selfless person. And in episode 5 this feature got further enlarged into a complete picture about her “justice”.
In episode 5, Sayaka started her life as a magical girl with the accompaniment of Madoka and Kyubey. In this episode, they found an envoy, which is inferior to the witch and won’t drop any grief seeds for magical girls to purify the soul gem. But still, it has the power to hurt common people. In order to stop it, Sayaka tried to chase it down but got stopped by Kyoko-a strong magical girl with a long spear as her weapon. She stopped Sayaka because she wanted the envoy to fully grow into a witch by eating more people, she could then gain grief seed from eliminating it. What Kyoko said was rationally right. Directly taking the envoy down means that magical girls will do work for nothing, this will make the dedication and reward imbalanced. Though Sayaka has less reason here, she found the value of Kyoko unbearable. She thinks that it’s wrong to sacrifice others for one’s good. Also, she surely didn’t like Kyoko’s view about how the stronger one consumes the weaker one. In other words, she entitled herself the “duty” to protect the common people from witches. By this short exchange of ideas, we can understand the “justice” of Sayaka, which is to contribute oneself to other’s sake and protect the weak. From the ostensible point of view, this is perfect and completely suitable with the typical image of “the hero of justice”. However, the whole concept of Sayaka’s “justice” lies in an incredibly large problem, and this could be seen in her conversation with Kyousuke. After his hand got cured, Kyousuke felt extremely happy while trying to apologize for what he said in episode 4, he’s sorry for hurting Sayaka’s feelings. However, Sayaka’s reply was rather weird:
Don’t worry yourself thinking about anything weird that happened, you should be really happy right now! Don’t make that face! (Episode 5 6:56-7:02)
Based on these lines, it can be seen how considering Sayaka was. Sure, it was nice for her to say things like that. However, the idea of “don’t let others think bad” only established on the situation that the other person was forcing themselves to do it or the thoughts had done them bad. And in the case when Kyousuke wanted to apologize, I found his attitude rather sincere. First, he said it directly and didn’t dodge. Also, he didn’t make any excuses to save his face like the common young boy would do. The most important point is, he didn’t just indulge himself in the happiness of curing the hand. Instead, he remembers to say sorry. From the analysis above, it can be seen that Kyousuke really had the intention to apologize, he did have the intention to make Sayaka feel better. While the will to apologize is sincere and it didn’t make the one say it feels bad, Sayaka still refuses it anyway. Kyousuke wanted to make her feel better, and she did seem to get hurt in episode 4. The reason why she refused the apologies has two aspects. From the perspective of others, she’s just taking the feelings of others way too much. And from her own perspective, she just doesn’t care about her own feelings. All while relating to the nationality of caring too much for others again. The important point here is that “don’t care” about feelings is not equal to “don’t have” feelings, this concept will be raised in the following paragraphs.
It's a fact that Sayaka is the type whose emotions tend to be affected easily by others, and she also cares too much for others. After listening to Kyousuke playing violin with his cured hand, the line said by Sayaka shows that how the inner system of her “happiness” and even “justice” work:
There’s no way I regret anything! I am the happiest I could possibly be right now! (Episode 5 9:07-9:15)
From this line, it’s evident that Sayaka is very happy. And yet, her happiness stemmed from the fact that she had helped “others”, which means that the happiness or positive outcome of “others” is in fact the source of her own happiness. To be clearer, she felt happiness and satisfaction from the good feelings felt by people other than herself. This feature, again, was in accord with her character of being emotionally susceptible to other’s influences. And her “justice '' actually also worked like that. She can only feel the fulfillment of “justice” from the reaction of other people. From the start of the article till now, all of Sayaka’s “positive” values had shared one common ground, which is they all got decided by “others”. From the most basic point, even her own emotional changes mostly happened due to other people. And in episode 5, we got to know that her “ultimate happiness” wasn’t because something good happened to herself, but for the good that happened to others. As for her “justice”, since she didn’t deny Kyoko’s comments and even acknowledge it in a way, it’s only proper that we who analyze it take it literally:
Like pretending to be a superhero and wanting to rescue people or something else that stupid, right? (Episode 5 18:49-18:51)
Since what Kyoko said was acknowledged by Sayaka, it can be seen in the word “pretending” that what Sayaka is doing is to play a role which is not herself. To be more precise, it’s what we call the “Ego ideal”. And thus, it can be said that what she’s doing is not “justice”, but striving to become a “hero of justice”. According to the theory of Freud, one’s “Ego ideal” contained multiple factors:
In Freudian psychoanalysis, the ego ideal (German: Ichideal) is the inner image of oneself as one wants to become. Alternatively, "the Freudian notion of a perfect or ideal self- housed in the superego," consisting of "the individual's conscious and unconscious images of what he would like to be, patterned after certain people whom ... he regards as ideal. (Wikipedia Article: Ego ideal)
Based on the article cited and Kyoko’s words, it can be seen that the “hero of justice” is the role Sayaka played right now. And this is what her conscious and unconscious image portrayed about what she would like to be. Surely, this ideal image was passed down to her by a person she regarded as ideal, which is Mami Tomoe. A simple line in episode 6 when Sayaka was quarreling with Madoka over the topic about whether they should talk with Kyoko just showed how much she admired Mami:
I understand that now. Mami-san was the only one who was different. All the other magical girls are like those two! (Episode 6 9:59-10:05)
Based on the line, it can be seen that Sayaka had generalized all the other magical girls into the “selfish” and “evil” groups. This is surely an arbitrary act since she hasn’t met all the magical girls yet. But still, this line showed that Mami is a special person to Sayaka. Since the line had emerged among the discussion of the selfishness shown by Kyoko and Homura (though a wrong reference), it can be said that in contrast, the exceptional Mami is the only person Sayaka considered as selfless. By selfless we mean that one has no concern for themselves, which can be further expanded into the meaning of dedicating for others. Based on how Mami behaved, she had bravely fought the witches for saving people, though she was actually afraid of death, she still faced the witches no matter what. She is aware of her own feelings and still puts up the courage to fight, that’s a real “selfless” person because she can still think about others while knowing she is afraid. From what Sayaka had done till episode 6, she tried to imitate Mami by helping and even saving people. She tried to strive for the ideal self. But she just can’t. From the previous line of her using random words to brush away Kyousuke’s concern about her feelings can see that she’s closer to the meaning of “have no concern” for oneself when it comes to the term “selfless”. She definitely saved others, but a decisive point made her totally different from Mami, which is that she has no self at all. But here it’s a bit different from the analysis of her having no self-build values, this part of “have no self” means that she has no “feelings”, to be more accurate, she doesn’t allow herself to have feelings. This should have stemmed from her false recognition of her ideal. Mami continues to fight with the awareness of her own feelings while Sayaka goes all this far with the restrictions on how she feels. In episode 4, she had erased her feelings of being hurt to let Kyousuke feel better. Till episode 6, she had already become the one who acted completely according to the ideal concept of justice, which is to save people and exterminate all the considered evils. She carried on to be a hero of justice without facing her own feelings, that’s what made her different from Mami. Mami knows how she feels and insists on fighting, and Sayaka becomes the one who tries to pretend the feelings don't exist and behaves totally in accord with the “ideal”. In the end, Sayaka just created a self-called “the hero of justice”. This self is completely disassociated from her because it's just the role born from the idea of “how others considered the role should act”. This surely is relatable to her character of being easily influenced by others, but furthermore, it was expanded to the extent in which Sayaka built her ultimate value on not only the “supposed others” but the “ideal self” based on the admiration of Mami. In short, the social perspective and the way Mami acted are the materials she used to construct the image of the “hero of justice”. From the analysis above, we couldn’t help but mention how her situation is similar to the persona theory mentioned by Carl Jung:
According to Jung, the development of a viable social persona is a vital part of adapting to, and preparing for, adult life in the external social world. "A strong ego relates to the outside world through a flexible persona; identifications with a specific persona (doctor, scholar, artist, etc.) inhibits psychological development." For Jung, "the danger is that [people] become identical with their personas—the professor with his textbook, the tenor with his voice." The result could be "the shallow, brittle, conformist kind of personality which is 'all persona', with its excessive concern for 'what people think'"—an unreflecting state of mind "in which people are utterly unconscious of any distinction between themselves and the world in which they live. They have little or no concept of themselves as beings distinct from what society expects of them." The stage was set thereby for what Jung termed enantiodromia—the emergence of the repressed individuality from beneath the persona later in life… (Wikipedia term: persona)
Sure, Jung had mentioned that persona is vital when it comes to socializing. One requires persona to adapt to the external society. And yet, Jung also mentioned that it would be a problem had the person became identical with their personas. The result is that people will have little concept of themselves as beings distinct from what society expects of them. The reason is that by putting on a persona, it means that one chooses to become valuable for other’s needs. In other words, this also means that it’s “others” that decided the value of one’s persona. Had others considered the persona has no values, the persona itself then loses all its meaning to continue to exist since it was meant for suiting the requirements of society. The problem mentioned above then clearly shown in episode 7. After knowing the truth that magical girls were all turned into zombie-like fighting machines, Sayaka became depressed and confine herself in the room. It’s Kyoko who made her able to go out again. However, after she returned to school and try to live normally again, her friend Hitomi then told her that she will confess to Kyousuke, she told Sayaka because she considered her a friend. Aside from feeling shocked, Sayaka happened to think that it mightn’t turn out like this had she not saved Hitomi. This is also the first time she felt regretted for her actions after becoming a magical girl. But then, her line shown the feature of her justice, which is the values decided by “supposed others” included Mami:
Today, I almost regretted what I’d done. For just a moment, I wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t saved Hitomi. Some hero I turned out to be. Mami-san would be ashamed to have known me. (Episode 7 18:42-18:58)
From the lines she said, it can be seen that Sayaka is despising herself. However, it’s not that she had really done anything to be despised. It’s just she got caught in the natural emotions. The reasons why she feels this bad for only having a natural emotion has two. The first reason is that this reaction of herself contradicts the persona she created. She considered the proper “hero of justice” shouldn’t have any selfish thoughts; they should contribute themselves for other’s sake. And thus, we could further say that the source of her guilt is the idea that she failed the social expectations of her being a hero. The reason why she comes to this place is all the same from the analysis in the last paragraph, it’s because by becoming identical with her persona, she became the type who couldn’t be distinct from what society expects of them. The next reason is associated with episode 5. In which she brushed off other’s concerns about her feelings with random words. My analysis in that part said that Sayaka doesn’t care about her feelings, since she considered her feelings as less important than the feelings of others. All while she acted in accord with this presumption set up by her, it still does not necessarily mean that she doesn’t have feelings. In fact, she has quite a lot. But she had held this presumption for quite a long time. In the end, it turned out that her presumption and her actions had become a type of “self-fulfilling prophecy”, which means that the false expectation leads to its own confirmation. While holding the presumption that her own feelings meant nothing, Sayaka herself would also act like that. After her action and mind were all dominated by the presumption, she would become that type of person at some point even though it’s actually false. In short, by holding the false presumption for too long, Sayaka becomes the person who viewed her own feelings like nothing, and she did act without caring about it since then. But the thought that one’s feelings aren’t important is completely false from the start. No matter how tiny Sayaka viewed her feelings, the undeniable fact is that her feelings do exist, and it matters. Sayaka assumed that she had acted like a hero of justice, and by taking this role, she also thinks that she really can become happy from “other’s” happiness. Based on her cited line in episodes 2 and 5, it can be clearly seen that she considered herself as already happy enough and should ask no return, which is the reason why she had the confidence at first that she herself is “justice”. However, a line she said after broken down just shown her own contradiction:
I’m going to lose Kyousuke to Hitomi! And there’s nothing I can do about it! (Episode 7 19:06-19:13)
All the audiences and Sayaka all held the idea that she is a selfless person, though she might be just mistaking the persona with self-value, she is still an ostensible “hero of justice”. If Sayaka is the type of person she proclaimed, then she should feel happy for Hitomi and Kyousuke, for she had the consideration that she herself isn’t suitable. Thus, it would be better for Kyousuke to end up with Hitomi, this is the supposed best situation. A selfless person like Sayaka should be the happiest one, since “other’s” happiness is the source of her own happiness. And the truth is the complete opposite. The line she said just showed how she felt about it. Obviously, she couldn’t accept the fact that it’s not her but Hitomi going to end up with Kyousuke. It’s clear that deep down in her heart, she did want Kyousuke to love her back. Otherwise, it would make no sense for her to feel depressed. When she used the word “lose”, it means that she had once or even now held the thought that she could win Kyousuke’s heart, and by “lose” it means that she takes the heart of Kyousuke as her supposed possession. She also wants to strike for it or even thought that the chance should be hers. With all the analysis above, we finally could conclude that Sayaka surely had selfish thoughts. To put it in a lighter way, she actually has the ability to think for herself. It’s not that this is a bad thing. Instead, it’s quite good. But on the other hand, by revealing her inner thoughts, Sayaka had shown that she couldn’t fully become the persona she mistook after all. The way to view her playing the role of “hero of justice” had twisted in another direction. What she has been doing till now is actually deceiving herself. By making herself into believing that she is “a hero of justice” and that “other’s” happiness is her happiness, she could indulge herself into playing a role completely disassociated from what she likes. By doing so, she can escape from the responsibility of facing her own heart. Now that we have known that Sayaka is actually a different person compared to the persona she played, it can be said that the “hero of justice” is totally fake, and below is the more comprehensive elaboration about my point.
First, this value or “role” is not something Sayaka built by herself. She constructs this role from the expectations of society and her projection of Mami. Besides that, when we considered her actions in episode 7 with the viewpoint of idealism, what she had done really couldn’t be called “justice”, below is the definition:
something mental (the mind, spirit, reason, will) is the ultimate foundation of all reality, or even exhaustive of reality, and… (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
From the definition cited above, it can be seen that idealism means the reality of the world is defined by the mental aspect. And thus, Sayaka’s actions will also be defined by her motivation. It’s true that her actions have helped people. However, since idealism means deciding reality from the mental aspect, we should decide whether her action can be called “justice” based on her goal of doing that and what motivates her. So, based on the analysis above, saving people (like healing Kyousuke’s hand) is not necessarily her goal. At this point, we must take the focus point back to episode 3, when the still-alive Mami warned Sayaka to think more about using her wish on others:
Miki-san, do you want his wish to come true, or do you just want to be the person who made his wish come true… a person to which he would be indebted? (Episode 3 5:28-5:34)
Back in episode 3, Sayaka had denied the possibilities implied by Mami and thinks she’s a bit too harsh. But considering what happened in episode 7, what Mami implied is exactly the truth. It’s obvious that Sayaka couldn’t be satisfied by just healing Kyousuke’s hand no matter how many times she claimed she is, which is also not her real goal of making the wish. The line she said in episode 7 after breaking down already showed that she indeed expects Kyousuke to love her back. The reason why she suddenly felt so inferior and thought of herself as a loser that fast is also clear. It’s because she couldn’t distinguish herself from what society expects of her. Not only her persona of “hero of justice” was influenced by this, it further expanded to raise her self -despised emotion. With the realization of what her body had become, Sayaka felt she is “no-human” under the common standard of society. This fact influenced her way deeper than Kyoko because the expectations of society are basically the only values left to support the self of Sayaka. The emotion of self-despise had then made her think that she has no qualifications to love Kyousuke. With this presumption in mind, the more jealousy she felt toward Hitomi, the more she will look down on herself. If the situation of her heart went down this track, then she would surely become totally destructed and find no meaning in living anymore. Sigmond Freud once said in his research, people have the tendency to live, below is the definition of the term called “Eros”:
In Freudian psychology, eros, not to be confused with libido, is not exclusively the sex drive, but our life force, the will to live. It is the desire to create life, and favors productivity and construction. In early psychoanalytic writings, instincts from the eros were opposed by forces from the ego. But in later psychoanalytic theory, eros is opposed by the destructive death instinct of Thanatos (death instinct or death drive). (Wikipedia term: Eros)
Based on the definition cited above, it can be seen that people do have the tendency to live, though it is also opposed by the death drive, that doesn’t mean the will to live does not exist. By having the will to live, it can be said that people will always find ways to avoid destruction, this is where it connects with the analysis. Like I said above, the road of self-despise Sayaka went on is the way to her own destruction, her Eros would try to avoid that, the result is shown in the last part of the episode. In which Sayaka still went on to fight the witch. She seems normal at first, but she seems to lose it and becomes weirdly focused as the fight continues. Finally, the line she said after using the suicidal way of attacking help to confirm my hypothesis that fighting witches are actually her way of avoiding self-destruct:
It’s true! If I just detach myself… it doesn’t hurt at all! (Episode 7 22:08-22:15)
In the context of the plot, the most persuasive translation of this line is that Sayaka had applied the knowledge of fighting learned from Kyubey earlier in the show, which is that magical girls are actually able to block the sensation of pain while fighting witches since their souls aren’t in their body. However, considering what happened in the episode, the words “doesn’t hurt” should have meanings other than the sensation of pain felt by the body. Just before the fight with the witch coming, Sayaka had revealed how painful she felt internally. She is struggling with multiple emotions such as the sense of loss due to having one’s wish broken down or the self-despise for being unable to be a normal human again. All of these negative thoughts on the psychological aspect are no less painful than being hurt physically. Knowing that “detaching oneself” is indeed a way to escape from “pain”, the painfulness she felt internally should also be a thing to escape from. And the exact way of how Sayaka escaped from pain was given in episode 7, though it wasn't direct enough. In the last part of the animation, we can see she got defeated at first. Just at the point when Kyoko was about to lend her a hand, Sayaka suddenly became very concentrated and decapitated the witch with lightning speed. Even though the counterattack from the witch had pierced through her quite a few times, she still went for it like it was nothing. From the function of “blocking pain” mentioned by Kyubey, the lack of magical theories for this function let me couldn’t help but search for answers in the field of real explanation. So, to elaborate this function more realistically, it seems that it’s because Sayaka had totally put herself in fighting, she let fighting become the only thing she had in mind. Though it didn't last long, she did manage to at once disassociate all her feelings and fully dedicated to fighting. It’s at this point that Sayaka learned the fact that she indeed can escape pain by fully disassociating herself, this also explains why she felt that happy after fiercely eliminating the witch in front of her. In order to elucidate the meaning in a more comprehensive way, it’s better that this has some theoretical support. Without a further say, this function is a type of “defense mechanism”, specifically the “neurotic” type of mechanism, below is its definition:
In psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation (German: Reaktionsbildung) is a defense mechanism in which emotions and impulses which are anxiety-producing or perceived to be unacceptable are mastered by exaggeration of the directly opposing tendency. The reaction formations belong to Level 3 of neurotic defense mechanisms, which also include dissociation, displacement, intellectualization, and repression. (Wikipedia term: Reaction formation)
Based on the definition cited above, it can be inferred that Sayaka dedicating herself to fighting witches is a type of “reaction formation”. The definition above said that this defense mechanism is to create a complete opposite tendency to escape from unacceptable emotions. The connection between this theory and Sayaka is now clear. The analysis above already said that Sayaka considered her selfish feelings as guilty and unacceptable for that she had contradicted with the image of “hero of justice” and lost her self-value. Thus, she needs to completely and even exaggeratedly force herself into fighting witches, which is to use self-sacrifice to repress or even deny the existence of selfishness. And then her dedication to the tendency of “justice” further developed into disassociation. She got swallowed by the desire of fighting and destruction. Though she did shortly escape from the painful emotions for a while, the side effects in fact made the whole situation worse.
Up until this point, the true nature behind the “justice” claimed by Sayaka is finally shown. The character development is a continuation, so it can’t be seen separately. Had one defined the image of “justice” only based on the first few episodes, the conclusion would be incomplete. The image is born from the social expectations and her projections on Mami. It’s not self-built and susceptible to other’s influences. At the very first, this would make her became the postiche of others. By building her self-value on the expectations and projections of others, Sayaka had fought all the way to “become another person”. She tried to fit herself into the frame created by others, while the undeniable fact is that one could never become others. The fact that Sayaka couldn’t even act like Mami means that she behaved poorer than her, but she still tried hard to become her. So, she basically became a person like Mami but have poorer results, which is what a postiche should look like. However, if only she could stick to this image till the end, the “justice” she grabbed tightly would still remain its core nature, the only problem then would just be Sayaka have no self-values. But in the end, she couldn’t remain the image of “justice” after all. Despite how much she claimed the importance of sacrificing and caring for others, she still had selfish feelings contradicted with the image. The fact that she couldn’t hold her belief till the end made this belief cut off from her. If she could persist, in common standard she could still be called a “justice” person. But her failure to do that immediately mixed the factor of fakeness with the image. The revelation that Sayaka actually had selfish feelings also made it clear that she is different from her ostensible self, and thus we could say that her external image is unreal for that’s not what she really is. And thus, the fakeness of the image could be confirmed.
Then, combining the fact that she used the fighting with witches to escape from the negative feelings with her talk with Kyousuke in episode 5, even at the very start of the show, it’s appropriate to infer that all the “justice actions” she acted till now are actually all meant for escape from her sensitive heart. Just like the analysis in the first few paragraphs, her heart is way too susceptible to the influences of others, and the other-built self-value made her vulnerable to what she received from the community she lived in. Furthermore, she even considered her own feelings as guilty. In short, it seems that just facing her own feelings is enough to hurt herself. And thus, playing a role different from herself surely is a way to feel better. Aside from the fact that this mechanism is already shown in episode 7, we could even say that the original goal for Sayaka to act in accord with the image of “hero of justice” was to feel more at ease, and this hypothesis isn’t come out of nowhere, the two lines separately cited at about 7:00 and 9:00 of episode 5 at this point has derived another meaning other than what’s already been said above, which is self-suggestion. By telling Kyousuke that it’s not time to care about her feelings, she once again conveyed to herself the idea that her feelings aren’t important compared to others. And the line that “I am the happiest person I could possibly be right now” sounds just like a self-suggestion since she basically means that with all the possibilities she could come up with, this situation should make her the “happiest”, she “shouldn’t” ask more, all while the extent of the possibilities may be just purposefully confined by her. Sayaka needs to constantly hypnotize herself into believing that there’s no need for her to face her heart, she could just put on the persona of “hero of justice” and act based on that, the nature of sacrificing and caring about this persona makes it a perfect choice for Sayaka to escape from her own heart. From the analysis above, we could see that the persona she put on had even lost its very definition. At the phase of finding out that Sayaka is pretending, we could say the persona had mixed with fakeness, and its definition remained unchanged. From the viewpoint of idealism (philosophy), everything is defined by the mental aspect. We could then say that whether the actions of Sayaka can be counted as “justice” is defined by her “motivation”. Because Sayaka did seem to save the people out of the intention of helping them, we could periodically call her actions “justice”. But now, as we further dig into her real intention, the result turned out to be that all she’s doing till now weren’t meant for helping others, the real goal behind it was just to make herself feel more comfortable. Also, the meaning of the other-built self-value has a way easier elucidation, which is the sense of “feeling needed by someone”. Because Sayaka had no self-value, she could only feel it’s worth to exist only when she is “valuable” in other’s eyes. In conclusion, her actions till now are no more than self-satisfaction.
Her solid “justice” had transformed from her character into a “persona”, a role played by her. Then, it had even lost its basic definition. Though the viewpoint of idealism did have its limits, I still considered it a feasible perspective when it comes to abstract values like morals or justice. And Sayaka’s motivation behind her action was actually all for herself, rather than the real wish of helping others, which is contradicted with the rules and norms of justice, in other words, we should just take her actions as self-satisfaction. It's not that doing things for self-satisfaction is bad since we humans did have the tendency to do profitable things. However, pretending the self-satisfied mask is justice and trying to justify one’s own intention is nothing but ultimate hypocrisy itself. The “justice” of Sayaka is a にせもの (nisemono), which means “fake thing”, nothing about it are true, from head to toe, this so-called “justice” said by her is totally fake.
After all the clarifications about what Sayaka really is, she finally met her end in episode 8. Just like what I said in the paragraph of the analysis about her defense mechanism. Fully dedicated to fighting surely can escape from all the pain she feels in a short period, but it definitely has side effects since the time when one completely lost in fighting also means that he or she got consumed by the negative emotions of killing and destruction. After the fight finished, her thoughts became more negative, and started to lose hope. Besides that, she even spoke sourly to Madoka and blamed her for not becoming a magical girl. A line she said between the talk with Madoka just again connected with my discourse about her other-built self-value:
All I can do now is kill witches, I am just a rock without other purposes. (Episode 8 4:04-4:10)
Based on the line, what we can see is that Sayaka indeed can’t find her self-values outside of being needed by someone. Even though she had already taken too much painfulness for herself to burden and sincerely experienced the emotion of jealousy, she still couldn’t think for herself, she still considered her living purpose as only for others. Besides that, the words “all I can do” also reveal her desperation. She’s losing sight of what to do and what’s her living purpose, that’s why she must not let go of the self-value she could still hold in hand. But it’s also true that “being needed by someone” is the only way she could think of her purpose of being alive, and that’s the reason why she said that fulfilling the purposes of what a “hero of justice” is expected to be is all she could do. After hurting the feelings of Madoka, Sayaka regretted it and ran away. When her soul gem is at its limit, Homura appeared out of nowhere and offering her a grief seed to purify it, the lines Sayaka said as rejection just further proof that all the analyses about her above is right:
I don’t need any reward for my work. I will never use magic for my own benefit. If I were to die, I would be when I am no longer able to kill witches. In other words, there’s no need for me anymore. That’s fine, then. (Episode 8 11:00-11:17)
The lines above just further show how hypocritical Sayaka is. What she said was all about sublime moral values, however, the motivation she claimed these values was not really that she agrees with them and desire to fulfill them, the first reason she claimed these values was for the hatred toward Homura. Sayaka considered her evil since she didn’t know her real back story, she was so triggered by Homura’s seemingly selfish behavior. However, she didn’t have any objective reasons to account for her, so we could say that she just disliked her based on prejudices and emotions, which is in itself not fair, and thus, contradicted with the very definition of the seemingly “justice” image she claimed herself. And the second reason she claimed these values is just the repeat of self-suggestion and one last back step before complete self-destruction. In another aspect, the lines above are also proof of how much she depends on others to support her self-values. When she was of no use for other people, she considered herself with no meaning to keep being alive. These lines showed how important other people are, it’s basically all she could rely on. In another incredible show called Attack on Titan, there’s an interesting character called Kenny Ackerman, before he met his end, he actually gave a quite decent line which is suitable to explain the situation of Sayaka:
Everybody I’ve met…was all the same. Drinking…Women…Worshiping God, even…Family…The King…Dreams…Children…Power… Everyone had to be drunk on something to keep pushing on… Everyone, was a slave to something. (Attack on Titan S3 Episode 10 16:46-17:22)
Just like what Kenny said, everyone, or most of the people in this world has to drunk themselves with something, and that “something” was meant as their living purpose. People had to continue drunk on this “something” to hypnotize themselves that it’s meaningful to keep living. Otherwise, they would find it meaningless to keep living. In the case of Sayaka, she had drunk herself with the satisfaction of being useful to others. This is something she got addicted to, and Sayaka has become the slave of it. She was dominated by this concept of “being useful for others”, and couldn’t come out of the circle she drew herself. But to think from another perspective, her dependence on the values of other peoples was because she considered it as a valuable thing for her, in another way we could even say that she thought of other people as worth saving. The value does not necessarily need to be something that could be transformed into direct profits, it’s the sense of happiness that Sayaka obtained. As she continued to depend on the concept of “being useful” for other people to live on, she then encountered the most terrible experience in her life. While she’s taking a tram, she encounters two horrible men who are talking about women. From what these two had said, they treated women like trash, they didn’t consider the feelings of the woman they were talking about and just used her. It’s at this point that Sayaka realized the darkness of society. It’s the first time in her life she had known someone that horrible. Thus, her ideal imagination that everyone is worth saving got broken down into pieces. It’s because she had held the imagination to the extent that her recognition of reality was shaped into a certain pattern, the side effects of backlash after the breakdown of the recognition were strong enough to make her suddenly lose the faith in humanity. Her encounter with these two is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Before this, she had already piled up too much pain to which she could only persist on living with her being useful for other people, which also means that she keeps thinking of them as worth saving. But the experience on the tram made other people in her eye lost the value to be saved, and thus she had nothing to depend on, nothing worth for her to keep living, the line she said on the train demonstrated this idea:
Is this world worth saving? Why was I fighting? Tell me! (Episode 8 14:48-14:52)
The line showed the idea that Sayaka can no longer find out any reasons for her actions. The last bit of her living reasons got taken away. Back to the core of her character, she needs “others” to feel the existing value, but then it suddenly becomes something she doesn’t want to fight on. And thus, she had nothing to fight for, that’s also when she gave up on living. At the end of episode 8, Kyoko finally found Sayaka, she tried her best to comfort Sayaka. However, what she couldn’t think of was that the words Sayaka said to her were her last lines. It’s in these lines that Sayaka shown her realization of what had she done all this time, and how empty she is:
That’s because I don’t really care anymore. I don’t know anymore…what exactly I was trying to protect, or what was so important to me. The balance between hope and despair, it keeps itself at zero. When was it you told me that? I understand what that mean now. I did save quite a few people, but in exchange, hatred and jealousy filled my heart. I even hurt my best friend. Someone has to be cursed to balance out a wish for someone else’s happiness. That’s how we magical girl work. I’m really stupid… (Episode 8 20:38-21:40)
These lines are a bit too long, so I will break them into two parts. The first part is from her saying that she doesn’t care anymore to the part when she said she didn’t know what was so important to her. And this part is what I can analyze objectively. The second is the remaining part, which contained some ideas I couldn’t agree with. The first part has clearly shown the fact that Sayaka had lost sight of what to do, and her motivations about what to do are lost, too. To use Kenny’s quote, we could say that Sayaka had lost the thing she kept drunk on, so she then has no power to keep pushing on. And it’s just natural that she doesn’t know what’s the thing she tries to protect because from the start she didn’t have a thing to protect. Her real intention for helping others was not meant to help them, but just for herself. That’s also the exact reason why she didn’t show specific care to the one being nice to her. It’s because she just cares about herself, and the proof is that the person who played the important role in her heart had nothing directly related to her or at once showed her specific concern. The follow up is the elaboration about this point.
Like Mami and Homura. Mami is nice to her, but it was meant as the kindness from a senior magical girl to the novices, so she was nice to both Sayaka and Madoka. And in the case of Homura, from the start, Homura’s deal was all about Madoka, Sayaka had nothing to do with her, neither had Homura done anything to her. Mami and Homura have nothing specific to do with Sayaka, all Sayaka had done was self-consciously admiring them or hate them, just again prove that deep in her heart, she’s the type who only cares about what she thinks about the world and used it to assume what it should look like. In contrast to the fact that Sayaka tends to force her projections on other people and took them as important, the ones who show real concern to her all got brushed off. Throughout the show, we can see that it’s Madoka who cares and worries about Sayaka all the time. When Sayaka got into a fight with Kyoko, she didn’t just blindly support her. Instead, she sincerely told Sayaka what she did might just hurt herself. In episodes 7 and 8, when Sayaka was depressed, Madoka was by her side all the time and continued to comfort her. And yet, she just got her sincerity twisted by Sayaka and gave her sour words in return. Then there is Kyoko. It’s undeniable that they didn’t like each other at first. But as they got to know each other better, Kyoko saw her past self in Sayaka, and she wanted to help her. She’s sincerely hoping that Sayaka wouldn’t go on the road of wishing other’s good and end up hurting herself, though she did express it awkwardly, it’s still not good that Sayaka just rejects them or brushes them off. And in episode 8, when Kyoko came by to comfort her, Sayaka didn’t take her seriously, she just continued to spit her sadness and distress. In short, the person who played the important role in affecting the emotions of Sayaka were all the ones she had unidirectional feelings for. By “the ones” I am referring to Mami, Homura, and Kyousuke. Mami affected her ideal and her ostensible justice character. Homura raised her hatred about selfishness and in a way also herself. Kyousuke made her happy but also depressed. Despite her feelings toward these people, never did once have them feel the same way toward her. In the end, it’s all about her self- consciousness and projection. The first part of the cited quote got explained already. Next is the part I have quite some disagreements with.
The second part is about how Sayaka mentions the balance between hope and despair and the inevitable fate of magical girls led her to this destination, or at least that’s how the lines look like with the way she constructs her sentence. When she used the fact that she saved people only to get her heart filled with negative feelings in return as an example to prove the rule of balancing hope and despair, it just didn’t sound right. Though it surely has a theory to support it, it sounds more like she blamed all her suffering on the theoretical rule. The supposed nature of the magical girls is not the real reason why her heart got filled with darkness even though she had done positive things. The one and the only reason is that unilaterally saving others and asking for no reward is not her genuine feeling. She didn’t want to do that, but she continues to deceive her own heart and mistook the deception she saw as the truth. So, as she had put herself in the role of a sacrificing hero, she just can’t expect to get the results of her true desire since she had acted oppositely. The consequences she got and what she feels make the contradictions that injured her heart, that’s why the negative feelings kept well up. Thus, she just can’t blame the nature of magical girls for her suffering, because she asks it herself.
In the very end, Sayaka finally regretted what she had done, she came to know her idiocy. And it’s also at this point, she broke the last bit of her remaining self-value. From what Kyubey had offered them, the soul gem is easier for the magical girls to use to distinguish themselves, because the soul gem itself all has different colors and shapes, which is suitable with the concept that everyone is different from all the others, also with the concept that everyone is a different self. With these similarities, it seems proper to associate the soul gem with the definition of one’s self. And thus, when her soul gem is shattered, it also means that her self-value is shattered, so she couldn’t maintain her very soul anymore. In her whole life, she never got to know what’s real justice, all she had done was idealistically seeing the world and lived in deception. And the consequence is her being drowned by her fake ideal. The ultimate end of Miki Sayaka is what the author tried to tell us; the righteousness without one’s true feelings is the rope to drag them down into the situation in which everything is twisted and went wrong, and this, is also where the “justice” is found.
Second part: redemption, and a genuine heart
In episode 8, the soul of Sayaka shattered into pieces, but she’s not really “passed away” yet. The emotion of despair mixed with her soul, she depraved into a witch. In this phase, she has no humanity anymore. All she could feel now is despair, and all she could bring to the world now is destruction. Even though her soul was broken, she’s not immediately passed away (though physically dead), she’s kept existing in a painful state. Using her as the example, we could analogize that all the witches are in this kind of situation. And thus, it couldn’t help but get associated with the concept of purgatory in the tradition of Christian belief when discussing the symbolism behind it. The follow up are the definition:
Purgatory, the condition, process, or place of purification or temporary punishment in which, according to medieval Christian and Roman Catholic belief, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for heaven. Purgatory (Latin: purgatorium; from purgare, “to purge”) has come to refer as well to a wide range of historical and modern conceptions of postmortem suffering short of everlasting damnation. (Britannica)
Based on the definition cited above, it can be seen that purgatory is indeed a state of postmortem suffering. To connect it with the witches in the show, we can see that they were also kept in the state of continuing to feel the emotion of despair, which is a type of suffering in its way. And when it comes to purification, we can see that purgatory is a state to use punishment to purify a person’s soul, after that, the soul could finally be allowed into heaven and rest in peace. Using the system associated with the show, we can see that the magical girls who turned into witches continue to exist in the phase of pain, and these witches were the target for other magical girls to defeat. After they got eliminated by magical girls, they could finally disappear and be released from the hell of despair. Thus, we could take the action of “eliminating witches” itself as an embodiment of purification. The magical girls came to kill these witches, and they also helped the witches to cease feeling pain. To put it in another way, we could even say that these magical girls who came to eliminate the witches were conducting a type of psychotherapy. Since the witches were the aggregate of negative feelings, extirpating it will make them disappear, and it’s this part that made it similar to psychotherapy, both of which will deal with one’s negative feelings. The most important common ground is, these two actions will make one felt relieved. The only difference is the differentiation of subjects. In common psychotherapy, one’s mental aspects would be relieved after the therapist helps them adjust to it. In the case of the show, it’s the soul to be relieved from the burden of negative feelings, after the witches got eliminated, they could finally pass away because they have no more feelings connected with the current world. The grief seeds they dropped after being defeated is another proof. The Grief Seeds have the function of purifying the soul gem, and magical girls will only get them after defeating the witches with the meaning of purifying them at the same time. As a type of equal exchange, the Grief Seeds have functions similar to what had been done, this is further correlated with the nature of “balance” in magical girls, what you have done will lead to the result with the same amounts. So, the one who purifies others will get to purify themselves in return.
After clarifying the symbolism behind the witches, we could then put the focus back on Sayaka again. It’s undeniable that what she had been through was mostly her fault, and her ultimate end of becoming a witch is also something hard to blame others for. And yet, these negative aspects of her don’t make her a “bad” person. The dualism view is too narrowed, people are not simple like that. The first part of my analysis had spotted many shortcomings of her, such as self-deceiving or hypocrisy, and still, I wouldn’t deny her good nature. The results she ends up with were because the first step was wrong, and then everything in her life went wrong. Besides this, her fake “justice” did create an important positive result in the show, which is saving Sakura Kyoko from what she’s about to become. If Sayaka is the embodiment of extreme “selflessness” in the show, then Kyoko is the extreme “selfish” one. It’s not that being extremely selfless has any good, but neither is extremely selfish any better. The result of extreme selflessness is a person without a self, a person existed not for being alive, but as the tool of others, the points above are what we called disadvantage. And the benefit (at least for me) is that seldom would these people feel lonely (though the person around might have other intentions). In contrast, the result of extreme selfishness is solitude. Indeed, an extremely selfish person can always gain the most benefits for themselves, but then other’s benefits would be ignored. To put it into the philosophical aspect, an extremely selfish person only has themselves in their eyes, and thus they couldn’t live in a community. By living in a community, one needs to think about others, because he or she lives with “everyone” rather than only themselves. Because of this, a person with only themselves in their eyes would find it hard to cooperate with others or look up for the needs of others, since they always considered themselves as the most important one. Due to this, in the first place, they might already choose to leave the community themselves. Had they not chosen to leave the community on their own, the next step would be that the community didn’t allow them to live in it, for they would cause troubles for other people. In Kyoko’s case, the reason for her being selfish is understandable, for she had lost her whole family with a wish for the sake of others. She was already left alone by her family. After going on the road of being selfish, she could easily make a living by stealing food, since she didn’t care a bit for the sake of others, not to mention the law. And thus, she could never stay in a place for too long, which means that she doesn’t have a certain place to return to. It’s her wish that has her family lost, and after that, she became lonelier. No one would she rely on, and she could find no one to rely upon.
Then there come the positive results brought by Sayaka’s fake justice. In the pure solitude of Kyoko, she met an idiot who always lived for other people, which is Sayaka. She despised her actions at first. However, no matter how many times she beat Sayaka up and seduced her with a more profitable way of doing things (like the thing about Kyousuke, she suggests Sayaka disable him, so he would have to rely on her), never did Sayaka change her righteous attitude once (though it might not be her true self) in front of her. The righteousness Sayaka showed did change her. In episode 9, after Sayaka became a witch, Kyoko decided to save her and invite Madoka to join. She changed a bit because she met Sayaka. The first change was shown in episode 9 when she’s saying her reason to save Sayaka:
Stories where love and courage win out in the end always turn out like that, you know? When I think about it, I became a magical girl because I always loved those stories. It wasn’t something I even think about anymore, but Sayaka made me remember. (Episode 9 13:52-14:12)
From the line cited above, it can be seen that Kyoko’s original cynical view about the world has changed. Kyoko before episode 9 is more like a realist, she believed in the harsh reality and only cared about profits. But the persistence of Sayaka made her remember the original heart. She remembered the real reason for her to become a magical girl, which is because she trusts the ideal and has hope, so she’s determined to give it a try. And the second change of Kyoko can be seen in episode 7. Though she had continued to claim that it’s important to live for oneself, she cared a lot for Sayaka since she saw her past self in her. She doesn’t want another person to go on the same road as her. At first, it’s the weird relationship that started with a fight that made Kyoko take specific attention to Sayaka. Then, the same wish and the same negative results made Kyoko sympathize with her. And then Sayaka had found the contradictory part about her ideas. She’s talking all about the importance of living for oneself, she still cares for Sayaka:
If you’re only living for yourself, then why worrying about me? (Episode 7 12:33-12:38)
Sayaka asked the question because she thinks Kyoko’s words are conflicted, and Kyoko didn’t deny that, she admits that she’s worrying that Sayaka would go on the same road as her. At this point, Kyoko is already not a selfish person anymore, she’s able to care for a person other than herself and give them a sincere suggestion. Kyoko had changed to a more considerate and thoughtful person, that’s why she couldn’t stand seeing Sayaka destroy herself. At the end of episode 9, she still failed to save Sayaka. Her wish is to let others hear her dad’s voice, so the side effects of the “balance” curse made her voice blocked from Sayaka. No matter how hard she tried, her voice never reached her. When she’s at her limits, Homura breaks through the barriers and is about to help, but Kyoko instead asks her to take care of Madoka. She said the reason for her to stay here is that she had to take the responsibility for dragging Madoka into this, but it's more than that. Kyoko decided to die with Sayaka, this is more than just taking the responsibility. Sayaka is the extreme counterexample of Kyoko, and it's from her being the same with Kyoko’s past that Kyoko finally had a feeling for other people. Kyoko could care and worry for Sayaka, in the very end, she even learned the meaning of sacrifice. Because she had a person she cared for, she’s willing to sacrifice for her. Kyoko used her final attack and both of them disappeared together. For Sayaka, she finally got set free from the hell of despair. For Kyoko, she’s not lonely anymore. When one is selfish, one can find nowhere but themselves to return to. Because they don’t want to stay at a certain place to care for certain people’s interests, other people also don’t want them to stay at any place. But learning the meaning of sacrifice itself already makes a difference. Though the thoughts didn’t reach Sayaka, Kyoko finally had a place she wanted to return to. The title of episode 9’s ending song And I’m home means that Kyoko at the end finds a place to return, which is by Sayaka’s side. Sayaka isn’t purely the one being saved. Though it may sound weird, the character of her fake justice did bring back Kyoko’s positive side to let her care for other people, which is the good result I am talking about. Even though it may not be positive, she did save Kyoko from solitude by bringing out her self-awareness. The ending of episode 9 is not a double suicide, it’s closer to double redemption.
At the bitter-sweet end of the anime series, Madoka became the “Law of Cycle” to eliminate every witch in every universe. From now on, there won’t be any magical girls who end up in despair and become witches anymore. Before that happens, Madoka will bear all of their curses and guide them to the “Law of Cycle”. The magical girls being guided would just disappear without pain. With all the situations combined, this is the best solution Madoka could have thought of. In episode 12, we got to know that Madoka now has the power to see through every universe, however, she’s also become a complete bystander of the universe. She can see through any of it as she liked, but she can’t interact with it. And from what she said to Sayaka, we could know that the way Sayaka being saved has her experienced the same as Madoka, the only difference is that her power is nothing comparable to Madoka:
The only way I could save you would be to make it like none of this had happened, which means that this future would have to disappear as well. (Episode 12 13:59-14:12)
From the lines cited above, we can see that the way Madoka saved Sayaka was to erase her before she became the witch, the possibilities of future after she became the witch will thus also disappear. Sayaka ceases to exist in the universe, she was guided by the “Law of Cycle” and became part of it. Now we have the knowledge about Madoka’s power, we can properly infer that she’s also able to see through every universe and realized why she always ends up becoming a witch every time. The core of Sayaka didn’t change that much with this little time passed, but there’s already a decisive difference, which is the change of position. During all she had been through from episode 1 to 9, the reasons why she ends up like that actually has another one aside from the analysis above, which is that she was trapped in the position called “herself”. No matter how hard she tried, she could never escape from herself. Despite all her efforts of trying to see the world from the perspective of “others”, in the end, the fact is that she could just see it with her own eyes. So, the reason why she ends up like that could then have another interpretation, which is that she couldn’t escape from her own perspective. While a person is alive, he or she could only observe the world with one’s own sensation. Since everyone has a different sensation, every interpretation is different, and each of them is formed in a certain pattern suitable to the subject. That’s why the sensitive and selfless Sayaka always interacts with the world in that way, though it actually hurts herself more. Using her own senses, she could feel the world as she likes, but she could never see herself with her own eyes, which means that it’s hard for her to be aware of herself if there are no other people around. The confinement of one’s own sensation is the reason why Sayaka can only observe herself clearly with the position of a bystander.
With the power of Madoka, she’s able to objectively examine herself and come to realize her true desire. It’s not that she couldn’t understand her true desire when she’s in her own body, it’s just quite hard. For that one couldn’t see themselves with their own eyes, Sayaka also had to rely on agents to know the knowledge about herself, such as the mirror for seeing herself or participate in community and learn the way to define her own emotions and feelings. No matter how precise these definitions and images are, it’s still not the answers she produced, after all, so it’s inevitable that sometimes it would be misleading, people can be misled by many factors into desire something they didn’t really want. As for Sayaka’s feelings toward Kyousuke, she had mistaken admiration for love. Both of the emotions showed strong feelings toward a certain person, and this feature is the condition often used by society to define the feeling of love. And the result of this misunderstanding has already been shown, which is her excessive depression in episode 7 and the nearly suicidal defense mechanism after that. From the perspective of the third party, she observes the actions of the person called “Sayaka” and realizes that all these times, her feelings toward Kyousuke weren’t actually “love”, it’s only that the way she kept escape from her own heart and repressed her true feelings had twisted it. After thinking calmly and having deep reflection about herself, Sayaka finally able to face herself and stated the thing she really wants:
I guess all I really wanted was to hear him play one more time. I wanted more and more people to be able to experience it. Now that I’ve remembered that, I am satisfied. (Episode 12 14:35-14:49)
Though this wish didn’t seem to have any specific difference from the wish she used to pretend herself before, we can hardly call it fake now, because the answers she found this time were not something given by others, she produced the answers after within herself. The time when one is willing to face their own self and search the answers for all the feelings within it is the time when one is able to find a genuine heart. And yet, this is just the phase in which she had realized what it means to be genuine. Her part in the rebellion movie is the demonstration of her “genuine”.
The rebellion movie is the continuation of anime series, and it’s basically about how Homura couldn’t bear the fact that Madoka became a god and went to a place where no one could interact with her, so after she got trapped by Kyubey, she unconsciously created a labyrinth in her heart and took every of her familiar in. Then after some reasoning, Homura came to realize that she is the witch herself. To protect Madoka from Kyubey, she decided to die in the labyrinth but got saved by the other members of Holy Quintet after all. To everyone’s surprise, Homura didn’t choose to simply go with the Law of Cycle. Instead, she used the emotion of love to overcome the authority of God, she became the demon herself and created a new universe (or another maze) for all her acquaintances to live in.
It’s undeniable that Sayaka is the side character in the movie. However, just the parts which she actively participated in already showed splendid character development compared with TV series. Before any of the character analysis starts, her true identity must be clarified first. Since that she’s already a passed away person. In the movie, after the other members of the Holy Quintet witnessed Homura becoming a witch, they decided to save her. It’s at this point that Sayaka and BeBe released their power of summoning their witch power. Kyubey is shocked about them and couldn’t help but ask their identity, so BeBe and Sayaka make a proper self-introduction to let not only incubators but our audience know who they are:
We were once bringers of hope, who despaired and spread our curses. Now we are those guided by the Law of the Cycle, to break free from the chains of destiny binding this world. (Rebellion movie 1:26:23-1:26:34)
From the lines cited above, we can see that these two shared the same feature as the Law of the Cycle, they all broke free from the chains of destiny binding the world, which means that they were the “outsiders” or “others” of the universe. And this also served as the direct evidence of the hypothesis that Sayaka had seen herself in other universes, since Sayaka is a part of the Law of the Cycle, it’s just reasonable that she’s able to do it. There are three parts in the movie that show the changes of Sayaka. The first part is after she saved Homura from Mami. Then, she used a calm and objective attitude to talk about the issues regarding witches, her dualism view before is nowhere to be seen, one casual line just further proof that:
Targeting her just because she used to be a witch? (Rebellion movie 55:22-55:24)
Had the one who stood here was Sayaka with that dualist view, she surely wouldn’t have any questions about Homura’s action of “targeting” a witch. Because she considered the witches as pure evil to be eliminated. And now, she’s the one to question the action of killing a witch. Seeing through all the universes didn’t necessarily change one’s moral values in such a dramatic way, there’s another reason for that. Aside from that, Sayaka is able to show profound wisdom by reasoning the purpose of the witch behind the labyrinth. Also, her actions are sharp and without hesitation, she’s even able to suppress Homura before she uses her time magic. The real reason for her growth is shown in the lines after she asks Homura what would she do if she discovered the witch:
Tell me, is this really so bad? We don’t have to fight anyone. We can all live, working together. Is the heart that wished for that so sinful that it needs to be destroyed?... They are final forms of us magical girls, as you said. I can’t help but sympathize. (Rebellion movie 57:24-57:47)
Based on the lines cited above, we can see that the current Sayaka is even able to sympathize with the witch, and this is the most decisive part. She didn’t hate the witches now for the reason of “she must to”. Instead, she can sympathize with the witch because she “wants” to. She didn’t deceive herself by playing the role of “hero of justice” anymore, so she was free from the supposed “sense of duty” which is not even her true feelings. The reason why she could achieve that was because she had recognized the true nature of her wish, and thus realized her true desire. It’s also because of the encouragement from Madoka that she got to know that her feelings are not something to be ashamed of, so she wouldn’t escape from it again. Thanks to all of that, now she’s able to stand on this basis and act for what she wants. The reason she became that strong is very simple because her external actions and her internal feelings are identical. When a person only acts on the sense of duty, it’s incredibly easy to influence them with a higher profit or another “duty”, and these people’s actions might be a bit dull for that they are just forcing themselves. But the results become different when a person can act on genuine feelings. Nothing can influence them, because both the external aspect and internal aspect are all the “self”. In such a case, a person didn’t act against themselves, so their actions would be fluent, and a clear goal would make these actions sharp. The surprisingly strong Sayaka is born in this way. Her genuine heart made her a person who can’t be underestimated.
Then is the second part of how Sayaka demonstrated her genuine heart. It’s after Kyoko heard the self-introduction of Sayaka and BeBe. She then knew that the Sayaka besides her has already passed away, she’s closer to a spirit now. Deep inside Kyoko’s heart, fighting side by side with Sayaka always remained one of her wishes, but now she discovered that the one she always wants to accompany is no longer in this world, she couldn’t help but ask Sayaka if the realities she’s experiencing right now are just a dream, and the answer Sayaka gave her is another example of how genuine her heart is:
This isn’t something quite as sad as just a dream. I thought I didn’t have any regrets when I died. But the reason I ended up taking this assignment and coming back was because I actually do have one regret. The fact that I left you behind. (Rebellion movie 1:29:16- 1:29:38)
Aside from how heart-warming these lines are, it also presented how much Sayaka had changed. Based on the lines cited, the first information we can extract from it is that she had chosen a certain position about how she felt when she left the world. She claimed that she didn’t have any regrets. The Sayaka before would persistently grab on the position she assumed herself she be in, and these positions were often given by others or misleading in their own way. Even if the positions given were wrong, what we see in the anime series were all about how Sayaka stubbornly insist on her position and didn’t admit that she’s wrong, the reason for her to act like that was that she’s afraid of facing herself, so she must pretend to be in another position and thus could act at ease. Different from all of that, Sayaka now is able to admit the idea she thought of before was wrong. The idea that she has no regrets was wrong, and she’s willing to acknowledge that. Then, she even managed to tell Kyoko her true feelings. She felt regret about leaving Kyoko alone in this world. She didn’t hide her true feelings with the so-called “sense of duty”. She didn’t come back for the reason she “ought” to, she came back after all was because she “wants” to. To be clearer, when it comes to the motivations for her actions, the Sayaka before would most likely say this is something I “ought” to do. And the current Sayaka will say this is something I “want” to do. By having a genuine heart, Sayaka is able to define the motivations for her own actions, she has no need to rely on other people’s definition anymore, and this is the change brought to her by the discovering of a genuine heart.
Finally, the demonstration of Sayaka’s genuine heart was shown in the last part of the movie. After Homura became the demon and rewrote the world, the human record of Madoka was taken away and Sayaka was also affected. Because of that, Sayaka was unable to return to the Law of the Cycle. However, she was able to live her normal life again. But she didn’t exactly get what had Homura done and wouldn’t listen to her explanation (and yet, Homura’s attitude was disrespectful, so I personally wouldn’t blame Sayaka here). She thought that what Homura did would destroy the universe, so she decided to consider her an enemy. She tried to summon her witch but got overpowered by demon Homura right away. The memory manipulation magic of Homura is so strong that Sayaka’s memory about the Law of the Cycle started to gradually disappear. Despite the disadvantage she’s currently at, Sayaka didn’t get totally controlled by Homura’s magic, she can clearly remember the fact that Homura is a demon, as she said:
Even if that happens, the one thing I will never forget is that you, Homura Akemi, are a demon! (Rebellion movie 1:43:56-1:44:02)
As we can see, demon Homura is incredibly strong to an extent in which she could manipulate her memories as she wishes. Thus, the memories regarding the Law of the Cycle had disappeared. Based on this, her hostilities toward Homura should also disappear. The fact that she could maintain the memory about Homura being a demon means that she could at least do the least extent counterattack toward an opponent a lot stronger than her. The reason why she could achieve that surely wasn’t just because she had a strong mind, since the mind of a human is nothing compared to the power of a demon. The reason she was able to maintain her memory about Homura was that she felt direct hatred toward her. This time, the reason why Sayaka hated Homura wasn’t because she thought of her as evil, like what she did in the anime series. Instead, her hatred toward Homura this time also combined with the fact that she also got affected. She didn’t just hate Homura for the sense of duty. The hatred this time is closer to personal reasons. When the hatred is based on obligations, it’s extremely easy to erase it or alternate it with other perspectives. After all, obligations are something not directly related to a person’s feelings, one doesn’t have to twist a person’s self-value to achieve the goal of erasing the obligations. But having a clear goal related to the person is something different. When the feelings are directly associated, one can’t be affected that easily because they are a complete self. To twist those feelings means one has to completely change a person’s value and perspective, this is objectively harder to achieve. Since Homura just randomly used her power and didn’t go all out, it’s just no surprise that her average power couldn’t change Sayaka. When one hates the other from their genuine feelings, those feelings just become something that couldn’t be underestimated.
Conclusion
After all the analysis above, I can finally give the conclusion to the article. Basically, her character story could give us two important messages. The first message is from the first part of her analysis, which is that one could never find their values with the opinions and expectations of others, and one should never use “others'' as their own motivation for acting. When one commits justice, the motivation shouldn’t be that they are just to fulfill the expectations of others, the only proper reason to dedicate to justice must and always should be that one has the sincere intention to do it. If not, then one would just find it meaningless to continue doing the justice stuff after other's comments about their actions changed. Just like one could only define their actions, self-value is also something defined by oneself. The one who builds their self-value on the expectations is after all an empty person, all of their values would disappear once they become useless to others, just like Sayaka in anime series. She’s always relied on “being useful” as her self-value, so she couldn’t help but persist in killing witches. Otherwise, she would just find herself empty and end up in destruction. The second message is shown in the second part of the analysis, which is that a genuine heart is always simple to find. The measure to find it is always simple, one just has to face their feelings, but just a simple step like this is hard enough for most people to take. In the oriental society where the mainstream values and recessive community norms spread everywhere, it’s quite easy that one would think “other’s” images and values are better than their own. Also, with the pressure of community atmosphere, it can be seen that people tend to erase themselves to fit into the community because they want to make others happy. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of wanting to make others happy. However, one also needs to remember that self-feelings are not something to be despised. Just like the feelings of a group are important, the feelings of each individual are just as important as the group. Before searching for the answers for what will make others happy, the more important question is what will make “you” happy. Only after the answers of what will make “you” happy are found, the genuine heart could then be discovered. Just like the Sayaka after being guided by Madoka. In the end, she realized that hearing Kyousuke play the violin again is her true happiness, so she could act based on a genuine heart in the whole rebellion arc.
work cited
2. anime episode2: 12:13-12:37
3. Benedict, Ruth. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: 1946
4. anime episode 5: 6:56-7:02
5. anime episode 5: 9:07-9:15
6. anime episode 5:18:49-18:51
8. anime episode 6: 9:59-10:05
10. anime episode 7: 18:42-18:58
11. anime episode 7: 19:06-19:13
13. anime episode 3: 5:28-5:34
15. anime episode 7: 22:08-22:15
17. anime episode 8: 4:04-4:10
18. anime episode 8: 11:00-11:17
19. Attack on Titan S3 Episode 10: 16:46-17:22
20. anime episode 8: 14:48-14:52
21. anime episode 8: 20:38-21:40
23. anime episode 9: 13:52-14:12
24. anime episode 7: 12:33-12:38
25. anime episode 12: 13:59-14:12
26. anime episode 12: 14:35-14:49
27. Rebellion movie: 1:26:23-1:26:34
28. Rebellion movie: 55:22-55:24
29. Rebellion movie: 57:24-57:47
30. Rebellion movie: 1:29:16- 1:29:38
31. Rebellion movie: 1:43:56-1:44:02
32.https://uniform.wingzero.tw/acg/character/48/183/1
Author: Bruce Lee
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