Thursday 27 March 2014

Theism in Rebellion Story (not the regular blogger btw)




Hello everyone, it's erejnion's brother here using his blog since I cba to make my own for one post
(btw he hasn't even watched Rebellion Story yet....)



So yeah, I've been thinking about the theism in Rebellion. The most central theme, that no group seems to agree upon, is of course Homura. We all saw that she's the Devil, even she said so herself. The question is - in what sense exactly? The role of the devil varies from religion to religion. If we are to say Homura symbolizes something, the no-brainer answer is “love”. Yet if you ask a hundred people if they associate love with God or with the Devil, a hundred would answer “God”. Which makes me think the system here might be different from what we're used to, even if Homura clearly represents love. Let us consider what she created – a world where everyone can live their mortal lives happily. She gives Madoka her flesh back in exchange for her godly self. Then it would make sense to say that Homura is the Devil because she represents the material world, and her deeds are giving the characters we all know the pleasures of the flesh. Still, putting it this way seems to be a bit off-track. When you say “pleasures of the flesh” you usually think of something... let's say “dirty”, a fall into depraved self-indulgence. Yet what Homura gives them is the pleasure of an everyday life, and her love seems to be pure (remember her flower?). From a Buddhist point of view though, pure love is also a type of desire, and thus the source of suffering. Meaning that Homura represents the material world, but not in the classic western sense. For example, even if you give food to a starving child, you are giving him material pleasures. This is a classic model in Buddhism, where all desire is condemned, and Homura would be associated with desire, while Madoka – with enlightenment. Still, from a classic non-buddhist moral standpoint, it seems that she is not condemned for being the Devil. On the contrary, actually. Remember the scene in the end, with the half-moon? Its meaning back then was nothing short of obvious – God is imprisoned, only the Devil is active, and so something's wrong with the world, only one half is there. Yet if Madoka is the other half, doesn't that mean she cannot be the whole by herself? It's implied that before that too, something was wrong with the world, that it also needs a Devil. While God represents the transcendent – the soul, the girls aren't spared from suffering throughout their mortal lives – and that is Homura's place. Rather, if you remember one of the main reasons for her actions, she will protect Madoka from QB – who is a part of the mortal world. So the Devil protects God from the dangers of the mortal world, and is thus not just accepted, but necessary. What does that leave as message though? Surely not that the Devil is just as good as the God – otherwise they'd have just been two gods. No, the material world has always been less important than the immortal soul, and we get creepy music to remind us that the Devil is the Devil and not another god. It's just that the two – God and Devil – do NOT represent good and evil, but transcendent and material.

inb4 Homura is crazy, stop building your opinion on atmosphere rather than on what's actually happening
inb4 “keep telling yourself that”, you keep never presenting me any arguments not to tell myself that

“But what about us?” If God doesn't represent good, and the Devil – evil, what morals would we learn from Madokism? If you ask me, the only clearly stated moral is hope. In Madoka's words “If someone says it's wrong to have hope, then I'll tell them they are wrong, every single time.”

oh, and about the divine beings themselves. Remember the ribbon Homura gives to Madoka in the end of Rebellion? When she accepts that the will to protect everyone is a part of Madoka. Accepting her selflessness means she goes against love (desire). Still, despite the early glitch, she continues the changed reality, hoping it will work out. Madoka herself as well – from their relationship in the labyrinth and many other scenes, it seems that Madoka feels something special for Homura. So the Devil is not without hope, and God – not without love. IMO they are best represented by the well-known sign with the circle split in two tears – one white, one black, with a small black dot in the white circle and a small white dot in the black circle.

(if someone can draw that sign with the black tear being Homura, the while tear being Madoka, the black dot in the white tear being a Homura doll and the white dot in the black tear being the pink ribbon, that'd be just awesome)

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