To those of you who really want Madoka to become a mahou shoujo, I have to say shame on you. More to the point, you’re probably not the type of person I would want to hang out with. From the discussions that I’ve seen over the past few weeks, a lot of people seem to be focusing on the finer points of contract formation and minors. While this is certainly an interesting discussion, it is a red herring. Instead, a lot of things in this series have striking similarities to one of my favorite non anime shows, Law and Order: SVU. Unfortunately, Mariska Hargitay (or her partner, whatever that guy’s real name is) won’t be there to try and save the day.

With this foundation in mind, I suppose we could call Kyubey’s contract with Sayaka the proverbial scene of the crime. I mean he practically got to second base with her back in episode 5. But given the events of the past two episodes, it seems like he got much further than that as it relates to the soul gem revelation. The fact that was one of the best revelations in any show in some time aside, it did highlight the delayed reactions that some youths have sometimes in realizing what has happened to them. I mean how often in the media do we hear some politician or actress admit that he or she was abused 20 or 30 years after the fact. But because of the relatively short window of time this show seems to be taking place in, we have gotten a glimpse into some of the more immediate impacts.

As great and shocking as that final scene in episode 7 was, I thought that the much more heart breaking scene was the one in which Sayaka told Madoka she felt used, like a zombie, and could never be with Kyousuke with her current body. If this just didn’t scream abused victim to you I don’t know what would. The reaction of Kyouko’s father to Kyouko’s revelation also showed what kind of effect this type of event would have on someone’s family. While it does seem kind of strange that her family wouldn’t try and support her after she became a witch (or the equivalent), I thought that the fact that her father was some sort of priest covered this issue fairly well. Though I can’t speak to the culture of Japan, I do know that in the US, some families do stop communicating with their daughters after they get a little loose with their morals and eventually slip.

Sayaka getting help from the least qualified person there is.

Clearly, that scene in the dilapidated church highlighted this difference. Sayaka was still afraid of what was going to happen if someone, namely Kyousuke, found out about what had happened. On the flip flop, it seems Kyouko had come to some sort of peace with the past events in her (also, the big bag of apples is sure symbolic of something). That made Sayaka’s rejection of help all the more stunning, in that she really needed this form of “counseling”. Instead, it seems that instead of either forgetting about what happened, as I’ll discuss with Mami, or accepting it like Kyouko, she is just going to go crazy.

That’s all well and good you might say (or not I guess), but where does that leave Mami. Well, she is dead, and given this construct I wouldn’t expect to see her again. While the circumstances of her “agreement” with Kyubey are certainly unique when compared to the other girls, I think we can assume that Mami knew what happened to her. While, on the whole, Mami was relatively upbeat about the whole Mahou Shoujo thing, there were several instances in which she did say there were some bad things about the job. I suppose I could make the case that fighting witches for eternity in some parallel dimension correlates to living with the event for the rest of your life, but that seems fishy at best (If I wanted to take it further, many people on LO:SVU who were abused early on in life, do the same to others  in their life/i.e. maybe coming a witch themselves cough Sayaka cough, but that’s just a thought).

Still, we probably could see Mami’s mindset right before her death, reflected in the setting. As some others have pointed out, and at first I did not particularly notice, the scenery shifted from pointy needles to sweet treats. If I were a devote follower in all things symbolic, I’d say that this more than anything shows how Mami was trying to stop thinking about what had happened to her. We would later find out that she never knew the truth about the soul gems, indicating that she was still in denial if we’re using the SVU framework. But as we all know, Mami is dead. This highlights that once you taste that forbidden fruit, you can’t go back again.

There are probably other things in the series that could fit into this framework if I racked my brain for days on end, but there are also some other things that were included that seem to  have no meaning at this moment. Chief among these questions is what role Madoka’s mom will have?  Clearly, she is an important character in the building up of Madoka’s character, but it also seems that something else is going on behind the scenes, or has already happened some time ago. Further, Madoka’s family life has been given a fair amount of screen time, so I’d imagine that a possible reaction to Madoka becoming a mahou shoujo would be crucial to the outcome of the story.  The recent reappearance of Hitomi and her stated intention to confess to Kyousuke muddles up the pictures even more. I’d imagine that if Hitomi and Kyousuke end up getting together, that will pretty much make Kyousuke even with Kyubey in Sayaka’s mind, as people who have used her. Also, I haven’t even mentioned Homura once in this post, as she is her own can of worms.

So no, I don’t want to see Madoka become a magical girl, or at least not become magical for the wrong reasons.