At this point, I've managed to avoid spoilers for the 3rd movie but have getting the sense that the ending isn't a happy one. And the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. In spite of the vague optimism the ending of Madoka Magica left the viewer, it doesn't change the fact that Homura might be an irrevocably broken character.

Now if you've been following my posts, you know that I'm a huge fan of all kinds of HomuMado adorable-ness. From the perspective of the anime though, that just isn't a realistic ending. Urobuchi has been on record as stating that Homura has gone through over 100 timelines in her quest to save Madoka. Assuming each timeline lasts a month, that quest has lasted our favorite time traveler over 8 years - 8 years of reliving the most important person in her life dying or witching out over and over again. It's a miracle Homura hasn't been consumed by despair 10 timelines into that experience, let alone 100.

And the anime does a good job of explaining how Homura accomplishes this - from her introduction as the shy and weak Moemura, to her gradual realization of the truth of the world and Kyubey's intentions, to finally the cold and emotionless Hommando willing to sacrifice anything to save Madoka. It's clear that Homura has completely severed her emotions and attachment to others to embrace her one singular purpose expressed through her wish.

But despite Homura's best efforts to block out those emotions, they still exist. This is expressed in a variety of ways - the facial expressions in Episode 1, Homura's inability to even speak to Madoka midway through the anime, and finally her breakdown and embrace of/speech to Madoka which only reinforces the distance between them. In her own words, Homura lost all sense of self sometime in the middle of all the timelines she's turned back and only lives for Madoka's sake - a Madoka that has no concept of the self-inflicted suffering Homura has been through for Madoka's sake.

Madoka has no concept of this, of course, until she finally makes her wish and becomes an omniscient concept spanning time and space. This also irretrievably removes her from Homura's plane of existence, with only a lonely red ribbon for Homura to remember her by. And now Homura is supposed to just fight on like nothing has happened? I think it's much too naive to accept Homura's explanation at the end, that she will fight because this worthless world was what Madoka wanted to protect. After all, this is a teenage girl that just had her entire reason for existence ripped away from her (ok, well, if Homura even counts as teenage or human any more for that matter). Not only is that reason gone, Homura doesn't even have a goal anymore besides a vague desire to protect an irredeemable world trapped in a cycle of sadness and hatred.

This brings us back to Homura's inability to completely remove her emotions from herself (as demonstrated by both what I mentioned above, and her near-descent into despair after being unable to defeat Walpurgisnacht yet again). Despite her strength of spirit, Homura just can't fight on indefinitely. As suggested by the movie previews, some impetus is probably going to cause her to do something incredibly rash or stupid to try to find Madoka again.

I don't know about that popular theory that Homura becomes the Mahou Shoujo Satan (Homucifer?). At first I was very against the possibility of that theory being even close to truth, but the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced the 3rd movie might be somewhat related to it. It does have a pleasing finality to it, and embraces the duality of nature that much of the anime was centered on. There's a part of me that wants to see Homura's sad descent continue just because it would be a great story.

But there's a much larger part of me that remembers that magical girls make hopes and dreams come true. After all, if I say that it's wrong to hope for a happy ending, Madoka will be there to tell me I'm wrong, right? I know it's pretty much a cop-out to say after all that rambling that I have no clue what will happen, but I really don't. All I know is that I'm super excited for December 3, but that I'm also bringing a box of tissues to the theater.