Madoka isn't Multiversal

I love Madoka. I feel like that fact might be overlooked sometimes. I ranked Madoka as one of my ten favorite series of all time. Even the more controversial parts of Madoka I love. I do not attempt to disprove Madoka's status as a multiversal entity because I dislike Madoka. Obviously, almost everyone agrees on a conscious level that your feelings towards a verse should not come into play when discussing a verse in terms of it's power. However if I may be honest, part of why I talk about this a lot is because I DO love the Puella Magi verse, and when it seems like people are taking things out of context or ignoring the story it distresses me because I love the story of Madoka. I'm not a contrarian by nature, I like to be in the majority with my opinions, so me going against majority opinion, especially when it would lower the standing of a verse I love, suggests to me that my position is either correct or a misapplication of versus phenomena, and not because of a bias of mine. Even if you disagree with me on something vs-wise I want things to be cordial, so even if you disagree me with me, I hope you can understand that I am just a person doing my best to figure out the true information and a Madoka fan who does love this verse, and because of that love is trying to be accurate about it.

So my next strategy guide was one for the Puella Magi-verse. I re-watched and re-read every Madoka series. That's a lot. I did this because I wanted to figure out exactly how strong the characters are and see if there is any possible evidence I missed regarding Madoka's status as a multiversal entity. And to be honest, what I found did not seem to meet the standard of evidence as applied to any other verse. 

Let's be clear with terms here for a second. A Multiversal entity in versus terms refers to one of two things:

1: A character that can destroy a multiverse, generally with one attack (city busters can destroy a country over time, but we don't generally call them country level)
2: A character that can significantly harm a character with multiversal durability. I say "significantly" because inconsequential damage is usually not used to scale anything to anybody. Dream of the Endless is all of the Dreaming, and a person might be able to warp a small part of The Dreaming but this is irrelevant to the whole of Dream.

The first one is what is commonly called "destructive capacity" while the later is what is called "attack potency". These two are not NECESSARILY the same thing. A character that can create a storm might be said to have town level destructive capacity as they are producing kilotons of energy, though not necessarily in a small enough area that it can harm a human sized entity. Conversely a character can shoot a human sized energy blast that only harms a single person but possesses kilotons of energy thus having town level attack potency but not destructive capacity. 

So let's talk about the Madoka multiverse for a second. When I said that Madoka is not multiverse, the first thing I get (well the second thing actually but I'll get to the first thing in a bit) is "Madoka has infinite universes" and then a page from Puella Magi Homura Tamura

This is a bit perplexing to me because as I have never denied that Madoka has a infinite multiverse, that really doesn't matter to my arguments. Though for the record this is a character statement (from Tamura none the less, which is a goofy almost downright parody manga) from a character who would have no known way of confirming literally INFINITE universes as her sensory abilities and speed are both finite. It could simply be extending past the number she can get too, ie hyperbole. 

That said this statement really doesn't bother me as evidence of this (I'm usually pretty generous with character statements) but more importantly Magia Record has a statement of "countless" records (which are each timelines)  by a third person narrator which is very solid evidence. Personally I would use that in place of this for evidence of an infinite multiverse but this is nitpicking.

I've looked up the supposed "multiversal" feats for Madoka and some of them are characters stating what will happen to the "world" like Homura claiming she might destroy "everything" or the Avatar of Calamity going to cause what happened to the world of witches to the world of wraiths

However using these as evidence by itself would be ridiculous (Also the latter is really vague as to what is's actually going to do), as they are only considered multiversal by scaling to other feats, or in other words they are recursive evidence. It would be like when I was finding the level of Starfire, if I said she was Star Level because she scales to Blackfire who is star level because she scales to Starfire. 

In other words, we do not need to consider feats that are not considered multiversal in themselves, only those that are considered multiversal in themselves. Of these there seems to be three, 2 of which seem to me to be misreasonings and one of which seems downright fabricated. The fabricated one mind you is the one that is most often brought up. Let's get to that first.

"Multiversal" Feat 1: Madoka erased the concepts of witches across the multiverse.

No, she did not.

This is vs battles wiki's justification for this claim

Let us consider exactly what is said here. Madoka states she is going to eliminate every single witch in existence before they are born. Kyubey states that this is going to defy the laws of causality and Madoka states that that she will destroy or change any rule that stands in her way (talking about causality, not witches.)

Let us look at what is shown to us, in detail, about how Madoka eliminates witches (4:50-7:10). Madoka shoots hundreds of arrows at least which scatter across spacetime to dying magical girls whose soul gems are filled with grief, and removes their grief, telling them they don't need to curse (witches are born from curses) or hate anyone anymore, how she will bear their karmic destiny and their burden for them. Consistent with her original wish (Quoted in full: "I want to erase all witches before they are even born. I will erase every single witch in every universe, past and future with my own hands...I don't care what you call it. All those magical girls who held onto their hopes and fought against witches I don't want to see them cry. I want them to stay smiling until the end. If any rule or law stands in my way I will destroy it. I will rewrite it. That is my prayer. That is my wish. Now grant it, Incubator!") every single magical girl dies smiling, their grief taken away by Madoka and they themselves brought up to her Heaven. 

As Madoka stated she erased every single witch before they were ever born and prevented the tears of every single magical girl so they would smile until the end. 

Nowhere does it say that Madoka erased the CONCEPT of witches, only that she erased every single witch before they were born, as she said in her own wish. The closet the franchise ever comes to saying this is the Wraith Arc of the manga where it is claimed the universe was rewritten (not saying that Madoka erased any concepts) and that Madoka created a new law/laws (Japanese is ambiguous generally about singular/plural distinction) which seems to be pretty obviously the law of cycles which is how Madoka is known in the world of wraiths.

We know for an absolute fact that the concept of witches still existed after Madoka's ascension. We know this because they are CENTRAL to the plot of Rebellion. The main plot of Rebellion is the Incubators creating a space isolated from the rest of the universe so Madoka can not intervene and Homura was still turning into a Witch. Madoka did not destroy the CONCEPT of witches, if she can not intervene Magical Girls would still turn into Witches. She is simply stopping each instance of a witch from being born as she said she would, and as shown in the original series. This is very consistent. When Madoka said she would not let a rule stand in her way, and she would destroy or change it if necessary she was saying so in response to Kyubey talking about the rules of CAUSALITY not the concept of witches. 

"Multiversal" Feat 2: Madoka caused every universe to warp

The statement generally comes from here (7:50)

Note Kyubey only says the universe is in the process of reordering itself in accordance to Madoka's new law(s). People seem to pretty much automatically assume that all the universes were affected because Kyubey can not confirm things about parallel universes as he states in the same episode. However that's the first point which is nothing claims the multiverse is reordering itself. In fact later in the episode Madoka's description of other timelines/universes suggest that they do not in fact all exist at the same time. To quote her "Both the universes that could have been and the universe that might one day be." Note how both of these are stating them as possiblities, not as other timelines that exist all at once. This makes sense in multiple temporal dimensions, that each one has their own timeline, but that there might be a higher timeline where each one exists one at a time.

But much more important then that, this is an example of people completely ignoring the mechanic by which something happened. Madoka went back in time and stopped every magical girl from turning into a witch, which naturally causes the universe to change what it's procession of events. 

In DC Comics before it was revealed that Doctor Manhattan was behind the events it was thought that the Flash going back in time created a new timeline (the flashpoint timeline) and later merged the timelines

No one at this time though Barry Allen was Universe Level or Higher and the reason why is pretty simple. Being able to cause changes to a timeline via time travel is, while very technically a form of affecting an entire universal+ structure, is not considered a display of power. If you want to be generous you could say it's a form of destructive rather then attack potency, but usually most people are inclined to just say it's a feature of time manipulation and not really combat applicable most of the time. 

The Universe in changed and reordered itself in response to Madoka's actions, namely the erasure of every single witch before they were born. Going from there to Madoka can warp the entire multiverse is a giant leap that is not at all consistent with what is shown.

"Multiversal" Feat 3: Madoka is omnipresent in the multiverse

Of the arguments this is probably the most convincing of them, though I still think it's pretty evidently wrong. What they're generally talking about is this.

"Everyone....Everyone will always be with me. From now on I'll be everywhere...any time, right there. That's why even if you can't see me, can't hear me, I'll be right there, by your side."

😭😭😭

umm...anyway. Madoka is comforting Homura. Homura expressed that she (Madoka) will be alone forever, and Madoka says she won't be alone, because she will be everywhere, and no matter where Homura is, Madoka will be there by her side. 

So let's take a part why this is not a multiversal feat.

First off this is a character statement. That isn't a big problem here, as there is no reason to think Madoka would be either wrong or lying to Homura, nor is that implied anywhere else.

Second off this is taking a literal interpretation of what is being said. Now granted, I think this calls for a literal interpretation, and I advocate for taking the literal interpretation when it's not made clear the other way to try and be fair, but still you could MAYBE argue that this is meant to metaphorical.

However there's two bigger problems with this. One is that again, Madoka never claims she is going to be omnipresent on a Multiversal Scale. Madoka is not a being that is bound by space, time, or causality. Meaning Madoka can appear at any number of times and places. This is more akin to mass scale duplication then it is to omnipresence. If another character can also move to outside spacetime and is acausal, then that isn't helpful.

Also part of the problem of her not stating that she is omnipresent on a multiversal scale is, as mentioned before, timelines do not seem to exist at the same higher-dimensional "time" in the Puella Magi verse. She describes universes that could have been and might be, not the universes that are. In other words her being omnipresent would only describe her being omnipresent in the universe that currently exists.

However that isn't getting into the real problem, and it's the bigger problem. Let us grant that Madoka is in fact a concept that extends across the multiverse. So what?

Let me give a comparison for a second. Darkseid is a conceptual entity from the DC Multiverse and his presence in that multiverse destroys it

Darkseid's concept inherently was destroying the multiverse and turning it into a supermassive singularity where all is Darkseid.

Madoka's concept never does anything like that nor is there any evidence it CAN do something like that. There just seems to be this assumption that Madoka's concept just EXISTING throughout the multiverse somehow gives her the ability to destroy the multiverse. But Concepts are not physical things. If a character's soul was the size of a universe, we wouldn't say that automatically makes the character universe level.

If anything the whole part of the final episode about how Madoka won't be able to interact normally with the physical universe anymore, as a strictly conceptual entity, suggests the opposite, that her conceptual body has absolutely no ability to affect the physical realm, though Madoka does have some feats of affecting the physical reality.

Overall I don't think there is any evidence that Madoka is multiversal, and I think the evidence brought up to say that she is multiversal is either a misinterpretation or outright contradictory.

OK I believe you, how strong are they?/I don't believe you, but how strong do you think they are?

I think the Madoka Top Tiers are Universe Level. Madoka was able to one-shot Kriemhild Gretchen who was enough despair to end a universe, Homura reality warped a universe at the end of Rebellion, and Magia Record suggests that Madoka could end a record/timeline (though the exact mechanism is admitting-ly unknown) :

"The Goddess decided to simply watch over it.

But if it's a bad record, then I have to break it, right?

When the now nearly familiar record, carved with mysterious, fun, and frightful voices becomes truly complete... 

Would the Goddess break it, or would she bestow her blessings on it?"

It is a bit strange that according to word of god Homura is equal to Madoka in power given Homura only took a fraction of Madoka's power though "Madoka = Homura" and "Homura only took a fraction of Madoka's power" are not technically mutually exclusive, just means Homura got a lot more power from somewhere, probably from her karmic destiny.

The verse lacks a lot of good speed feats, though as Madoka is an acausal being and exists outside spacetime, speed is not hugely relevant.