PMMM can be rather controversial as to how powerful the verse is (among other things). Though I often argue against what appears to me to be Madoka wank I'm actually a really big fan of the series. Every series loses some of it's impact over time, as the newness of it wears off, but PMMM really doesn't lose a lot of impact to me. It still seems almost as complex and intriguing watching it now as when it came out. I wanted to give an analysis of how strong Madoka in her kami form and Homura in her akuma form. I have reviewed episode 12 of the anime and movie 3 (rebellion) and gotten down every quote that seems like it could be important. None of these are my translation, as I did not wish to bias it unconsciously by translating as I would think. Times are approximate obviously.
Episode 12:
1:15 Kyubey: “So now you’re
the central point of karmic destiny for numerous different timelines, how
matter how enormous your wish it, it’s likely to come true.”
1:40: Madoka: “I wish to
erase all witches before they are born. All the witches in all the universes,
both past and future. With my own hands!”
1:55 Kyubey “If a prayer
like that is granted, it could unravel the fabric of time itself!”
2:00 Kyubey “It would go
against the very force of karmic destiny!”
2:04 Kyubey “Do you truly
intend to become a God?”
2:10 Madoka “All those who
fought against witches, who believed in hope as magical girls, I don’t want to
see them cry. I want them to be smiling to the very end! If any rule or law
stands in the way of that, I will destroy it. I will rewrite it. That is my prayer.
That is my wish.”
~3:00 Madoka is seen
speaking with Mami before she gathers peoples’ souls alluding to her nature
outside of time
3:05 Mami “It means that
for all the past and future, and throughout all of time, you will have to
continue fighting forever.”
3:15 Mami “In doing so
you will lose all traces of your individual self”
3:22 Mami “For all of time
you would continue as merely a concept, a principle that destroys witches”
4:10 Mami: You aren’t just
granting us hope, you’re becoming hope itself. The hope of us all.
4:55 Madoka shoots what
appears to be hundreds of arrows, each to a specific location
5:03-5:40 A Magical Girl
is seen almost giving into despair when one of Madoka’s arrows appears before
her and turns into Madoka who takes the despair away, freeing the girl’s soul
5:40-6:15 Madoka repeats
the above, saving magical girls in different places and times from despair
6:15 Madoka: “I won’t let
your prayers end in despair. None of you have to hate anyone or curse anyone. I
will bear all of that cursed destiny for you. So please to the very end keep
believing in yourself!”
6:43 We see a cascade of
thousands of Madoka’s arrows
6:45 Walpurgisnacht vanishes
seemingly without being hit by Madoka’s arrows
7:12 Madoka: “I’ll go
back, before you turned into this, and take the burden of yours.”
7:47 Kyubey: “The Universe
is in the process of reordering itself based on Madoka’s new law.”
8:02 Kyubey: “Let us
witness what kind of end the existence called Madoka Kaname will meet”
8:15 Kyubey “Can you see
all the cursed destinies she took upon herself, as the price for making such an
enormous wish.”
8:23 Kyubey “She was able
to bring forth enough hope to create an entire universe, why is to say it will
also become enough despair to end the entire universe as well.”
8:50 Krielmhild Gretchen
Emerges as the despair of Madoka’s wish, a witch who contains the Earth in her
barrier and so large that it’s size is only equal to one of her eyes
9:10 Madoka: “My wish was to erase all witches.
If that prayer really comes true, then even I should have no reason to despair
ever!”
9:34 Madoka fires her
arrows at Krielmhild Gretchen at FTL speeds which completely obliterates her
9:45 The light of Madoka’s
arrow fire outshines galaxies
9:50 Kyubey: “Madoka,
with this your life has ceased to have a beginning or end. No trace of your
life on Earth, nor a single memory of you will remain anywhere.
10:05 Kyubey: “Your
existence has shifted onto a higher plane, and all that will be left of you
here is a concept.”
10:10 Kyubey: “No one
will ever be aware of your presence again, and you will never be able to
interact with anyone.”
10:16: Kyubey “You have
ceased to exist in this universe.”
10:40 Homura is in sorrow
at Madoka’s fate but Madoka comforts Homura
10:42 Madoka: “As I am
now, I can see everything that ever has or will happen. Both the universes that
could have been and the universes that might one day be. All of them.”
10:55 Madoka displays
knowledge of all the things Homura has done for Madoka across timelines.
11:59 Madoka: “I’m not
alone. All of you will always be with me. Because I will be everywhere at every
moment from now on.
12:33 Madoka “So even
when you go back to your world, maybe you’ll still be able to remember me.”
13:40 Madoka is with
Sayaka’s soul
14:07 Madoka: “No I’m the
one who should apologize. In order to save you, I had to leave things as if
nothing has happened. As a result this future would have to disappear as well.
16:07 Mami: “Led away by
the indelible law of cycles.”
16:39 Mami: “Before the
hope we wished for summons an equivalent amount of misfortune, we have no
choice but to vanish from this world.”
19:23 Kyubey: “If the laws
of the universe really changed the way you said they did, there’s no method we
could use to verify that.”
20:12 Kyubey: “But in
that witch world you were describing, there weren’t any wraiths like the ones
we fight here right?”
20:38 Homura: “Just
because witches are no longer born into this world, it doesn’t mean the curses
of mankind have ceased to exist. The distortions of this world have just changed
form.”
Rebellion:
39:53 Homura reveals that
the whole movie until that point had taken place inside a Witch’s labyrinth IE
witches as a concept still exist
55:40 Homura and Sayaka
begin a long conversation about witches showing that they still exist in
concept
56:05 Sayaka: “What the
witch controlling this labyrinth wants is to maintain the status quo in here”
59:18 Homura: “…witches
no longer exist in this universe. The soul of every magical girl is taken away
before it becomes a witch.”
58:25 Homura: “That was
the new order she created when she remade the world…”
59:35 The visage of the
witch Octavia appears showing her existence
1:11:57 Homura says that
she is a witch
1:13:45 Kyubey: “The
mysterious power that cleanses magical girls and makes them disappear. We
wanted to know what would happen to a soul gem that was cut off from the phenomena
that you magical girls call the ‘law of cycles’.”
1:14:20 There’s no
specific time, but it’s been a running plot point that Homura is turning into a
witch and only hasn’t yet because the Incubators have locked her in an
isolation field. The importance of this is that magical girls turning into witches
would still happen
1:15:31 Kyubey: “If the
existence known as the ‘law of cycles’ still tried to reach Homura Akemi the
only way for that existence to enter would be to rematerialize in the form of a
victim that you’d invite in.”
1:16:16 Kyubey: “Even though
she (Madoka) doesn’t exist within the karmic cycles of our universe, she was
able to slip into your world without causing the least disturbance.”
1:16:50 Kyubey: “It seems
the memory rewriting conducted by you, the master of the labyrinth, affected
her as well”
1:21:00 Kyubey tries to
threaten Homura that if she dies inside the isolation field she’ll become a
witch since the law of cycles won’t reach her showing yet again that the
concepts of witch still exists and magical girls would still turn into them if
Madoka did not save them
1:22:40 Homura’s witch
form appears
1:26:07 Sayaka’s summons
her own witch form to help
1:27:07 Sayaka: “Someone
had to hold her (Madoka) powers and memories, until it was time to be give them
back to her!”
1:34:30 Madoka begins
coming to take Homura away
1:35:00 Kami Madoka flies
down to the prone body of Homura
1:35:45 Homura, pre-Akuma
Homura, grabs Kami Madoka surprising her
1:36:45 Homura rips Kami Madoka
into mortal and divine parts
1:37:00 Homura’s magic begins
extended outwards. Notably, the other Magical Girls there actually react to it
which….I don’t think anyone has gone so far yet as to claim everyone there is
MFTL
1:37:00-1:37:30 Homura’s labyrinth
encompasses the universe
1:38:10 Kyubey: “The
world is being rewritten. Does this mean a new principle has been born into
this universe?”
1:42:20 Akuma Homura
enslaves the Incubators
1:42:10 Sayaka: “You’ve
broken off a part of the law of cycles, the power of salvation that was the
hope of all the magical girls.”
1:42:15 Homura: “All I
took was a tiny piece of it.”
1:42:55 Homura suggests
she might destroy the universe
1:47:55 Madoka begins to
re-ascend to Godhood until stopped by Homura
As always, feats (IE what empirically happens) takes precedence over character statements, though we should try and recognize all information and if at all possible reconcile them.
So let's try and do our best to reconcile the information we are given and come to figure out how strong Madoka and Homura are.
Let's start with the big point, the big debunking. Madoka did not erase the concept of witches. It can be understandable to be confused initially as Madoka declares that if any rule stands in her way she's destroy it or rewrite it and Madoka herself is refereed to as a rule or principle that destroys witches before they are born. Yet if we go into the mechanics of what happens we see that Madoka goes to a magical girl and takes them away before they become a witch, "erasing" a witch before it's born as is her wish. We know this is absolutely the case because the movie Rebellion is absolutely dependent on the existence of witches. They appear throughout the film, Homura was turning into one in the absence of Madoka coming down to her, thy are summoned in the final battle. All evidence shows that Madoka did not reality warp the concept of witches from the multiverse. Here there is no information to be reconciled as all information points to a singular conclusion.
Kyubey at one point does say the universe is reordering itself based on Madoka's new law. Since Madoka herself is that law, ie the law of cycles, this is referring to Madoka becoming her abstract concept it would seem. Of course Kyubey and the Incubators in general do not have capacity to understand the abstract plane of existence as Kyubey says to Homura in episode 12 that what she is saying is unverifiable to them and then in movie 3 they know very little information about Madoka until they conduct their experiment.
The three big characters in terms of power are Kriemhild Gretchen, Akuma Homura and Kami Madoka. Of the three we know Kami Madoka is BY FAR the strongest. Akuma Homura mentions that she only took a small bit of Kami Madoka's power and Kami Madoka easily destroys Kriemhild Gretchen. There is no direct comparison between Akuma Homura and Krielmhild Gretchen, though Gretchen's labyrinth "only" encompassed the Earth while Homura's encompassed the universe which seems like Homura would be much stronger then Gretchen giving us a sense that Kami Madoka>>>Akuma Homura>>>Krielmhild Gretchen. This would be mean it is wrong to scale any of these three to another that is higher then their own.
So what is Kami Madoka? Well to start with the obvious, she is a concept. There is no contradicting evidence here. What is a concept? Well a concept, otherwise referred to as a principle of reality or a law of reality, both with PMMM, is a part of reality (IE something that is real) that is more fundamental then physical reality (matter, energy space and time). As such I often sort of dislike attaching terms suggesting a physical level of attack and durability to Kami Madoka like "universal" versus "multiversal" especially durability. Kami Madoka as a concept wouldn't have a physical durability because she's not made of matter or energy. Theoretically one could blow up the multiverse and do nothing to her, but I don't consider that multiversal durability for the same reason not being able to destroy an intangible ghost with a planetbuster does not make that ghost planet level in durability. I don't think Kami Madoka HAS a durability "level" on the physical plane because from what I understand Madoka can't be hurt physically with any amount. That's not an NLF, it's simply how the notion of a "concept" works.
So let's get onto the notion of Madoka's "omnipresence". Here we reach the first major conflict of information. Madoka states that she will be everywhere and every moment from now on after ascending to Godhood. However Kyubey claims she will no longer be in this universe any more upon ascending to Godhood. This alone would be fairly easily to write off, as the Incubators clearly have very limited knowledge of the abstract plane. However the Incubators are able to create a field isolating Homura from the concept of the law of cycles. If Madoka was everywhere, like the concepts of "matter" or "energy" for instance that would be impossible, because Madoka would be within the Incubators, all their technology, and in Homura herself. Likewise when Madoka is awoken she moves to Homura instead of simply being where Homura is. Even in episode 12 Madoka does not simple "be" wherever the Magical Girls that are dying need her. Instead she shoots her arrows there which become her. As I said earlier feats should obviously be important then character statements. But I do want to try and reconcile this information as beset we can. Especially since Madoka would have no reason to lie to Homura there outside of maybe making her feel better.
I think Madoka might not be omnipresent in the sense of having all of physical existence within her being, if that was the case she would simple be where she needs too, and it would be impossible for there to be something physical that is not apart of her. Rather I think what Madoka has is a combination of two factors.
1: As a being of outside of physical space and time Madoka can theoretically exist when and where she chooses "in" the spacetime continuum though her real self is not anywhere or when, it is outside the spacetime continuum.
2: Madoka appears where her arrows are shot, which means theoretically she can duplicate herself to the degree that she can be in every place a Magical Girl needs her to be at once.
So that leads to the question...does Madoka have a speed? I greatly disagree with the notion that omnipresence is a speed. Omnipresence is a denotation of where you are (everywhere) while speed is a denotation of (change in space)/(change in time), a changing of where you are. Why is this important? Because Omnipresence does not theoretically help with a speedblitz. Let us say that the Flash was within the planet Mogo in the DC Universe. Mogo has planetary scale omnipresence but the Flash, a foreign entity could still blitz Mogo because The Flash can react and act faster then Mogo can. This is the same at any scale.
That said much like I don't think Madoka has a "durability" physically speaking, I also don't think she has a "speed" physically speaking. As a non-physical entity not within space and time, Madoka's position does not have any change in space or time. Madoka's "movement" speed could be any arbitrary amount, though in some cases it would be more akin to teleportation or time travel then to speed. What would more then in avoiding a speedblitz is Madoka's reaction time. How fast can Madoka sense things and react to them. While Madoka is outside the universe's spacetime continuum so long as she has a consciousness herself, it is clear she can thus experience change and thus experiences a spacetime beyond the physical one. A personal spacetime denoting to her what place her conceptual nature is in and what changes are happening to it. Unfortunately Madoka does not have a single good reflex feat I could find. The only showing is Pre-Akuma Homura moving fast enough to surprise Madoka which....is pretty low. The only other thing I could even think of was reacting to Homura's magic which grew to encompass the universe, but that sounds sketchy when considered in conjunction with the fact that the other Puella Magi, were able to react to it as well.
The other big claim Madoka made was that she is essentially omniscient. However here also we receive conflicting information. Less then a minute after claiming that Madoka says that Homura will "maybe" still remember her, suggesting she does not know everything that is going to happen even though she said she could all events that would happen in all the universes and all that has happened, including all the things Homura went through to try and save her. She also is clearly surprised by Homura's actions when Homura takes her powers. As such forming a conclusion about Madoka's cosmic awareness levels is difficult. I can only see three options though perhaps I am missing some form of reconciliation.
A: Madoka claims that she "can" see every event so she could be doing so but just decides not to? I don't like this explanation because while it's technically coherent it seems highly illogical on Madoka's part especially since her saying Homura might remember her in the universe to be is so soon after her saying she can see all of them. She never says she turns off her omniscience to preserve free will or anything like that would suggesting this option
B: Madoka says "As I am now" so she could have had the ability to see every event and then lost it? Again don't like this explanation because even though it's coherent there is nothing suggesting it and it isn't explained by anything
C: The way Madoka describes all the universes denotes that the universe is singularly real and the various pasts and futures are not equally existent, but instead what "could have been" and what "might be". They are possible realities, not alternate realities that emerged independently. In other words Madoka would be able to tell everything that could have happened and everything that might happen, but isn't able to tell which of the futures will come to past. In other words she knows every possible state of the universe but not which state the universe will take. I like this one most because it makes sense with Sayaka having been given half the powers and memories of Madoka to act as Madoka's emissary along with Bebe and how Sayaka mentions that Homura deserves it after all she went through denoting that she has awareness of all the timelines Sayaka went through just as Madoka did. This would explain why she knew Homura might be able to remember but didn't know for sure and why she was surprised at Homura's actions since she would know it was a possibility but not the probability of it.
With our understanding of Madoka's nature and awareness we should ask ourselves what Madoka can do. For the most part this is a question of what she can do on the physical plane. To be honest, there is sadly little suggesting that she can do much. Kyubey claims Madoka can't interact with anyone anymore. We know the Incubators have a very limited knowledge of a Divine Being like Madoka's capacities though, so that should not be ironclad. As mentioned the notion that Madoka warped the concept of witches out of the multiverse is totally unfounded. It's contradicted constantly throughout Rebellion. Madoka's wish is to be able to erase each witch before they are born with her own hands and indeed we do see her do so, including wiping out Kriemhild Gretchen the strongest witch with apparent ease. But can she act apart from her concept? It might seem a silly question, but if Madoka is literally the concept or principle of wiping out witches before they are born, then it might seem natural to wonder if that is her whole existence.
However Madoka things other that. There is nothing in her wish implying she would gain the ability to take Magical Girl souls to Heaven and yet she does this. There is nothing in her wish or her concept that suggests she could give her powers or memories to others and yet she does this. Madoka may be the principle of wiping out witches but she also has a will, a consciousness that can decide to things unrelated to that principle, as well as having thoughts and feelings, meaning theoretically a mind and a soul. This seems consistent with all information we are given about her. In fact she even materializes a physical body to be "invited" into Homura's labyrinth. This seems strange in regards to why she didn't interact with Homura before the Incubators began their experiments if she can do so, and also it seems to contradict Kyubey she could not interact with anyone anymore, though for the later again the Incubators knowledge of conceptual beings is imperfect.
As Madoka can act unrelated to her concept based on showings, this would suggest there is nothing stopping her from say firing her magic arrows at a potential enemy and releasing a large amount of energy in an attempt to defeat them in a standard versus match. This leads to another question, namely can Madoka reality-warp?
As mentioned above, claims that Madoka warped the concepts of witches away are unsubstantiated. Madoka made changes to the spacetime continuum that it caused to warp in accordance with these changes and the wraiths are a resulting emergence of the new cosmos that Madoka clearly had no reason to make. We do not say Flash is universe level even though his actions changed the Post-Crisis Earth-1 to become the Flashpoint Universe by going back in time. Homura with a tiny fraction of Madoka's powers DID warp the universe however it does not seem evident this necessarily means Madoka could do the same though it does present a clear possibility of it being so. So Madoka can cause the universes to change by altering the past, and possibly has the direct ability to universal reality-warp scaling from Homura.
With all that said Madoka has some pretty clear weaknesses. She clearly is capable of being mental manipulated as happened with Homura's labyrinth in the isolation field and with Akuma Homura wiping her memories despite being much weaker. Also she has never been in a fight anyone her equal. As such she has no feats of surviving the attack of someone who can actually affect abstract concepts existing outside physical spacetime nor does she have any clear reaction speed feats. This is why I think Madoka is stronger then almost any Magical Girl but weaker then Sakura and Usagi. Most Magical Girls simply have no way of affecting her and would die of old age even if she did nothing. That said Usagi and Sakura can both attack abstract concepts existing outside of spacetime and have defenses that could protect them from any ability Madoka has shown.
Akuma Homura is somewhat different, and easier to use, though it's mildly disturbing to me that some people are actually trying to scale her to Kami Madoka when she explicitly only has a tiny bit of her power. Akuma Homura is shown by suggestion and feats to have universal power both in terms of reality-warping and raw destruction (method unknown). Akuma Homura is possibly at least part conceptual herself as Kyubey notes the shifting of the world and wonders if it means a new concept is being born, though Homura seems to also be at least partially physical as well which would suggest she is susceptible to physical attack and hax. Unless Homura is suicidal her assertion she might destroy the universe at least suggests she can survive universe level physical energy, though she lacks much durability and speed feats much like Kami Madoka. We know her magic speed is quadrillions of times the speed of light, able to quickly encompass the whole universe. Ideally that scales at least her reflex speed though there is no evidence that I would say is conclusive in that regard.
