What did you not like about Sayaka the first time you watched it, and what changed to make you like her more the second time, Amy Lynn?

I was just listening to Sayaka's theme, and forgot I had it on shuffle mode: it went next into and I'm home, which is just soooo powerful.
So I was trying to think of what it was so powerful, and what there was between Sayaka and Kyouko that made it resonate so powerfully.

The rough idea I have is that, since their wishes for other people both ended up giving themselves equal suffering. They differ in their responses: Kyouko decides to live only for herself as her wish crumbles, but Sayaka sacrifices herself to preserve the happiness of the other person.
Sayaka doesn't take the apple, because she'd rather go hungry than hurt someone. Kyouko steals the apple because she'd hurt others to feed herself, at this point.
Sayaka can't bring herself into her wish because of her own sense of inhumanity, that she's too different for Kyousuke; this leads to her suffering. Kyouko would have loved to enjoy her wish, but those who benefited rejected her because of a perceived inhumanity. So for Sayaka, it's her who's inhuman; for Kyouko, it's her father that brings in the 'inhuman' element.

Both of them, I think, are longing for normalcy, where no one has to suffer, but that is impossible unless you're Madoka. So though they're fundamentally incompatible and fight a lot, they share the same goal. Sayaka thinks she's not normal so she cuts herself out; Kyouko thinks others are to blame, so she strikes out alone.
Sayaka comes to understand Kyouko's motivations/reasons when she admits that, for a second, she wanted to let Hitomi die so that she could be with Kyousuke. That is close to Kyouko's way of thinking, and what Sayaka is trying to hide in herself: that she's not a perfect hero of justice who will always put others in front of her -- because that ideal cannot exist.
Just as Sayaka represses her selfishness, Kyouko has repressed the side of her that really wants to help other people, her altruism. She starts to come around in offering Sayaka the apple, since Sayaka reminds her of what she was like: and if Sayaka agrees with her, that means that Kyouko made the right choices, right?
But Sayaka rejects the "apple of temptation," as it were, and keeps being altruistic until the contradiction ("I will live totally for others") destroys her, and you get the flip side ("I will destroy others as a witch.")
Kyouko and Sayaka are, in a sense, two mirror/reversed images, almost incompatible, but with the same desires.

And Kyouko affirms Sayaka's perspective through her sacrifice: she stays behind, killing herself in order to end Sayaka's suffering/give her peace. Now, this is Sayaka's own choice: altruism, which Kyouko offers to her.
Now Sayaka can rest/stop suffering personally, and Kyouko has alleviated the suffering of another. Hence the image song of Sayaka drowning, and Kyouko sinking down with her/to help lift her up. So the mirror images, in a sense, complete each other.

Any thoughts or input on that, things I missed? Other things that make Kyouko and Sayaka so powerful?


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On Madoka endings always being suffering, yeah, I think if you want "happy endings" you can watch the Let's Play of the PSP game on youtube. For example, it has Sayaka and Hitomi finally fighting it out over Kyousuke, and Sayaka and Kyousuke being together -- and Homura comforting Hitomi, and the latter becoming obsessed with her.
From the snippet I saw, anyway. xD
The game is basically "Homura being fairy godmother" and trying to keep all the characters happy. xP

Thoughts:
- Some of Kyouko's smaller early reactions make a lot more sense when you know her backstory, both what her wish was and her relationship with Mami.
- Kyouko is also kind of horrifying before she begins to warm up to everyone.
- Episode four has what is to me one of the scariest moments in the entire series. This is after Madoka and Sayaka are aware of the world of witches around them, but also after the only person who has been guiding them and keeping them safe has died. And then Madoka sees that one of her close friends has been kissed by a witch, and she can't get Hitomi to stop, so she has to follow the other girl like a lamb to slaughter, she knows that nothing good can come of this, but what can she do, call the police? She can't even call Homura. And then, holy crap, she's locked into a mass suicide. And what's really scary to me is that at that moment, her enemies are not witches and familiars, they're people. Ordinary people, but without their own will, only the collective anger towards the one small girl who has interfered. And Madoka's sheer terror really comes across so viscerally in this sequence. And then she escapes into the closet, only to be sucked in by a witch herself, subject to the full force of its power without Mami or any magic of her own to protect her. And, of course, Sayaka saves the day, but still, holy crap, what a terrifying sequence of events. Especially how Madoka succumbs to the art style of the labyrinth.
- The interactions between Madoka and Junko make me a) super grateful for my own wonderful relationship with my mother, and b) want to be a mom myself so that I can do my best to have a good impact on the life of a daughter, like my mom had on me and like Junko has had on Madoka. I love mother/daughter dynamics like the one in this show because that sort of relationship is so personal and means so much to me.

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I think I tried to answer this post before. I'll give it a shot now. I didn't like Sayaka because I just don't like that sort of brash, cocky character type. (See also: Rainbow Dash) I was able to like her more the second time because I knew that she would get some depth and development. Also, Homura was right, Sayaka really isn't fit to be a magical girl. She throws herself into it too much and can't compromise even a little. Not so much a judgment, that, as an observation. It's why the others managed to stay alive so long.

Thoughts on your other observations, I think you say a lot of good things. I might comment more as I rewatch those episosdes; I only just finished rewatching 6 tonight.

In this rewatch, since I've been RPing Madoka, I've been paying a lot of attention to the title character. It's been interesting watching for when she lets herself get walked all over and when she chooses to assert herself, when she gets angry, stuff like that. She really doesn't, but there are moments, and those are interesting to see. I should have made better notes. We've established in chatting that, basically, Madoka is never gonna witch out from despair, only from magic overuse, which I find to be one of the most compelling aspects of her character, that this simple girl who's something of a crybaby can nonetheless have such inner strength when she needs to.