Personality: Madoka Kaname on the whole comes off as a bubbly, cheerful and friendly girl; she has a sweet, often humble, disposition and an easy way with most people that make her an easy person to befriend. She’s someone who tends to wear her heart on her sleeve more often than not; this may sometimes make her come across as childish or even a little helpless, although those making such an assumption would soon find that nothing could be further from the truth. Enthusiastic and affectionate with her friends, you could be forgiven for finding it a little unlikely that this was the girl that became a literal embodiment of the concept of Hope before rewriting several universes with a single wish.
The most unfailingly constant thing about Madoka is her kindness and compassion for others; those looking for proof need only look to the original timeline, when she used her wish to revive a dead stray cat that had been run over moments before. Madoka is a kind and gentle soul, and when she was human, one of her greatest wishes in life was for the people around her to get along and be happy. She was and still remains the kind of person who would lend a fair and listening ear to everyone, even making attempts to if not befriend than at least understand those who may seem at odds with her at first. This makes her a natural mediator and an emotional support for many, something that she demonstrates time and again in her interactions with the other Puella Magi in multiple timelines. Particularly in a world like the one Madoka was originally from, her kindness was both her greatest asset and her biggest flaw – she simply cares too easily and too much. This goes hand in hand with her optimism, her belief in the power of friendship, and her seemingly unending supply of faith and hope. Although seeming like more of a hindrance than a help in a world where being a magical girl essentially means becoming a lich doomed to fall into despair and trusting others is more likely to get you killed, it was Madoka’s kindness and determination to help others even at the cost of herself that eventually proved key to ending the timeloops for good when she made her final wish, creating a much kinder universe and improving the fate of all magical girls to boot.
As a human, Madoka suffered from extremely low self-esteem. She was painfully aware of her own insignificance and desperately longed for some sort of purpose to her life; she once said that her own deepest wish was for nothing more than to be useful to other people and to live being able to be proud of herself. Madoka didn’t particularly see herself as intelligent or worth bothering with, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Madoka had and still has a lot of inner strength and courage; she will walk into danger to support her friends or what she believes is right, regardless of her own fear or her perceived lack of skills; even in timelines where she didn’t become a Puella Magi, Madoka would often accompany Sayaka or the other girls as moral support. Madoka is also a lot more intelligent than she gives herself credit for; for all her idealism, she is actually very grounded, and has a good head on her shoulders. Her instincts and her initiative in the heat of the moment have occasionally saved lives, such as when she intervened to stop the group suicide in episode four. However, it should also be noted that rash actions like this have also lead to less than ideal outcomes, such as when she threw Sayaka’s Soul Gem away in an effort to stop her and Kyouko fighting – an action that could have lead to dire consequences for Sayaka had Homura not retrieved the gem in time. Madoka also has a great desire to protect the things she loves, a strong sense of justice and of right and wrong, and an inability to understand how anyone could act deliberately and unfeelingly in a way that would harm others. When it comes down to it, Madoka has a core of steel, and once she finally has all the pieces to decide which path she is taking, can look her destiny unflinchingly in the face.
Now that she has become a nigh-omniscient being of hope whose only real interaction with the physical world is when she collects the souls of exhausted magical girls, Madoka has acquired a somewhat different perspective than the one she had as a human girl. She retains almost all of the personality traits she had as an ordinary fourteen year old girl, and in many ways still acts like a fourteen year old, but she is also the sum of all the experiences she had in every timeline leading up to her final wish, and then some. Since she is Hope itself, she logically has no reason to despair even in the face of her own erasure from existence, and this makes her rather more mellow: if someone tells her that it’s wrong to hope, she will tell them that they are wrong every time. Her empathy and compassion for others’ suffering is still there, but it’s less likely to bring the outwardly tearful or horrified reaction it would have when she was human. Instead, she will offer all the help and comfort that it is within her power to give. Having finally been able to make more of a difference to the universe than she ever dreamed she would be able to, Madoka is much more self-assured and at peace with herself and everything else; even so, her desire to protect everything else remains.
[ CANON ] Madoka Kaname || Puella Magi Madoka Magica || reserved || 2 of 3
The most unfailingly constant thing about Madoka is her kindness and compassion for others; those looking for proof need only look to the original timeline, when she used her wish to revive a dead stray cat that had been run over moments before. Madoka is a kind and gentle soul, and when she was human, one of her greatest wishes in life was for the people around her to get along and be happy. She was and still remains the kind of person who would lend a fair and listening ear to everyone, even making attempts to if not befriend than at least understand those who may seem at odds with her at first. This makes her a natural mediator and an emotional support for many, something that she demonstrates time and again in her interactions with the other Puella Magi in multiple timelines. Particularly in a world like the one Madoka was originally from, her kindness was both her greatest asset and her biggest flaw – she simply cares too easily and too much. This goes hand in hand with her optimism, her belief in the power of friendship, and her seemingly unending supply of faith and hope. Although seeming like more of a hindrance than a help in a world where being a magical girl essentially means becoming a lich doomed to fall into despair and trusting others is more likely to get you killed, it was Madoka’s kindness and determination to help others even at the cost of herself that eventually proved key to ending the timeloops for good when she made her final wish, creating a much kinder universe and improving the fate of all magical girls to boot.
As a human, Madoka suffered from extremely low self-esteem. She was painfully aware of her own insignificance and desperately longed for some sort of purpose to her life; she once said that her own deepest wish was for nothing more than to be useful to other people and to live being able to be proud of herself. Madoka didn’t particularly see herself as intelligent or worth bothering with, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Madoka had and still has a lot of inner strength and courage; she will walk into danger to support her friends or what she believes is right, regardless of her own fear or her perceived lack of skills; even in timelines where she didn’t become a Puella Magi, Madoka would often accompany Sayaka or the other girls as moral support. Madoka is also a lot more intelligent than she gives herself credit for; for all her idealism, she is actually very grounded, and has a good head on her shoulders. Her instincts and her initiative in the heat of the moment have occasionally saved lives, such as when she intervened to stop the group suicide in episode four. However, it should also be noted that rash actions like this have also lead to less than ideal outcomes, such as when she threw Sayaka’s Soul Gem away in an effort to stop her and Kyouko fighting – an action that could have lead to dire consequences for Sayaka had Homura not retrieved the gem in time. Madoka also has a great desire to protect the things she loves, a strong sense of justice and of right and wrong, and an inability to understand how anyone could act deliberately and unfeelingly in a way that would harm others. When it comes down to it, Madoka has a core of steel, and once she finally has all the pieces to decide which path she is taking, can look her destiny unflinchingly in the face.
Now that she has become a nigh-omniscient being of hope whose only real interaction with the physical world is when she collects the souls of exhausted magical girls, Madoka has acquired a somewhat different perspective than the one she had as a human girl. She retains almost all of the personality traits she had as an ordinary fourteen year old girl, and in many ways still acts like a fourteen year old, but she is also the sum of all the experiences she had in every timeline leading up to her final wish, and then some. Since she is Hope itself, she logically has no reason to despair even in the face of her own erasure from existence, and this makes her rather more mellow: if someone tells her that it’s wrong to hope, she will tell them that they are wrong every time. Her empathy and compassion for others’ suffering is still there, but it’s less likely to bring the outwardly tearful or horrified reaction it would have when she was human. Instead, she will offer all the help and comfort that it is within her power to give. Having finally been able to make more of a difference to the universe than she ever dreamed she would be able to, Madoka is much more self-assured and at peace with herself and everything else; even so, her desire to protect everything else remains.