{"id":9691,"date":"2011-01-22T03:45:48","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T09:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/?p=9691"},"modified":"2011-01-22T03:46:41","modified_gmt":"2011-01-22T09:46:41","slug":"beware-of-kyubey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/?p=9691","title":{"rendered":"Beware of Kyubey!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9692\" style=\"width: 644px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9692\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9692   \" title=\"EVIL!\" src=\"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/1295616689347invert.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"634\" height=\"356\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9692\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The harbinger of your destruction.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>To all aspiring magical girls: don&#8217;t trust the cute animal.<\/p>\n<p>He may seem to have the best interests of the world at heart, but don&#8217;t be deceived. There&#8217;s information he&#8217;s deliberately withholding. There are questions he never answers. Some of these are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Where do Witches come from? And why do they drop &#8220;seeds&#8221; with a similar floral patter to the Puella Magi&#8217;s soul gem?<\/li>\n<li>If Puella Magi are necessary to defeat Witches and avoid the destruction of the world, why does Kyubey allow a rivalry between two of his Magi?<\/li>\n<li>How long has this struggle with Witches been going on? How many Magi have come before Mami and Homura?<\/li>\n<li>Why do the Magi&#8217;s soul gems get darker when they use their powers? If the grief seeds are used to cleanse them, wouldn&#8217;t that indicate the Magi&#8217;s power source is of a corrupt nature?<\/li>\n<li>Why does Kyubey specifically target young girls for recruitment in this war?<\/li>\n<li>Also, why does Kyubey give an apocalyptic dream of the future to Madoka but not Sayaka? He offers the Puella contract to both of them, after all.<\/li>\n<li>When Homura injured Kyubey, why did his white &#8220;fur&#8221; look more like a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Mahou-Shoujo-Madoka-Magica-01-Large-33.jpg\">covering for his actual appearance<\/a>? The phrase &#8220;wolf in sheep&#8217;s clothing&#8221; comes to mind.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Besides these in-universe mysteries, though, there are pretty clear meta-textual references scattered throughout the last three episodes. These references primarily point to a Faustian bargain. Specifically, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe&#8217;s version of the story.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>For those of you who weren&#8217;t paying attention in English class, <em>Faust <\/em>is the tale of a scholar named Faust, who makes a deal with the devil Mephistopheles. If the devil serves Faust for the rest of his life on earth, Faust will give his soul to Mephistopheles upon death. The parallel with <em>Madoka<\/em> is obvious. Kyubey offers to make any wish come true (the devil serving the mortal) if the pact-maker agrees to fight Witches (the mortal serving the devil).<\/p>\n<p>There are even direct, in-universe call-outs to Goethe&#8217;s version. Though there are many, I&#8217;m going to focus on one found <a href=\"http:\/\/wiki.puella-magi.net\/Deciphering_the_runes#Episode_1\" target=\"_blank\">in the first episode<\/a>: the poem in the Witch&#8217;s maze that begins &#8220;This you must ken!&#8221; This directly corresponds to <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=_9TnAAAAIAAJ&amp;pg=PA84&amp;lpg=PA84&amp;dq=%22From+one+make+ten%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=hSU4mdSvYP&amp;sig=hD9T6ZxE6I7qcXMCRgt5N9rZQUI&amp;hl=en&amp;ei=ioU6Taz7F4H2gAf6iL3eCA&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=book_result&amp;ct=result&amp;resnum=2&amp;ved=0CBwQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=%22From%20one%20make%20ten%22&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\">a poem found in Goethe&#8217;s story<\/a> that (guess what) is recited by a witch.<\/p>\n<p>Kyubey&#8217;s appearance even sports clues to his sinister secret. As noted in one of the <a href=\"http:\/\/wiki.puella-magi.net\/Speculah:Kyuubey_is_Evil_Theory\" target=\"_blank\">speculation pages of the Puella Magi Wiki<\/a>, Mephistopheles first appears to Faust as a cute animal. Specifically, a stray dog that follows him home. Additionally, when Faust agrees to the deal, Mephistopheles forces him to use a drop of his blood to sign it. Notice <a href=\"http:\/\/wiki.puella-magi.net\/images\/4\/48\/Kyuubey_Chara_Sheet.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">the tiny red dots on Kyubey&#8217;s ear-fringes<\/a>? What do those remind you of? Oh, and every time a Witch&#8217;s kiss is shown, it&#8217;s colored red. Coincidence? Doubtful.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s something wrong here. Something lurking beneath the surface. The <a href=\"http:\/\/wiki.puella-magi.net\/Runes:Episode_2\" target=\"_blank\">writing on the wall<\/a> in episode two that mentions &#8220;invisible spirits&#8221; points to a very similar passage in <em>Faust<\/em>, where a chorus of angels attempts to warn Faust away from the pact. He, of course, refuses and suffers the consequences. Please, don&#8217;t end up like him. Heed the warnings. Don&#8217;t trust Kyubey.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9693\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/evil_close-up.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9693\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9693  \" title=\"His eyes... stare into your soul...\" src=\"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/evil_close-up.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/evil_close-up.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/evil_close-up-1024x576.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9693\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Seriously. The dude&#39;s just creepy.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To all aspiring magical girls: don&#8217;t trust the cute animal. He may seem to have the best interests of the world at heart, but don&#8217;t be deceived. There&#8217;s information he&#8217;s deliberately withholding. There are questions he never answers. Some of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/?p=9691\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1299,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-2","category-fandom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectharuhi.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}