What do you consider good writing?

[Party Moth]

By pointless I mean the death itself didn't happen for any meaningful reason in-universe. i.e. She's not fighting some important villain or buying time for someone to escape or any of the usual ways stories make us at least somewhat okay with character death. From a tonal perspective the death is a masterstroke, I didn't label it the "best part" of Madoka for no reason. But in terms of the plot, it's a major character being horrifyingly killed off for real by a one-note monster that shows up only in that episode and is pretty easily dispatched after it does its business. That's pretty pointless. The pointlessness of it becomes the point later on, but at that moment the death is pointless from a completely in-universe standpoint.

Also don't rag on my analysis of Madoka I literally watched it for the first time like a week ago I'm new to this okay??? (It's really fucking good though, I give it my English Major stamp of approval)

Didn't mean to rag. Was just honestly curious on your perspective of the whole thing, and your point's fair. The overanalysis comment was also somewhat tongue-in-cheek since that's kind of the general reaction such analyses get from people. I swear, just try to write a dissertation on the analysis of harmony and tonal modulation in the original Legend of Zelda soundtrack and see how everyone just goes "It's just a game, man. For kids." or looks at you like you've grown a second head.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Duels at Dawn

[General Banzai]

Didn't mean to rag. Was just honestly curious on your perspective of the whole thing, and your point's fair. The overanalysis comment was also somewhat tongue-in-cheek since that's kind of the general reaction such analyses get from people. I swear, just try to write a dissertation on the analysis of harmony and tonal modulation in the original Legend of Zelda soundtrack and see how everyone just goes "It's just a game, man. For kids." or looks at you like you've grown a second head.

lol if you want overanalysis how about the fact that Mami's death by decapitation corresponds to the common jacobean pun where beheading = losing virginity (i.e., cutting the maidenhead), making the specific method of death appropriate not only as the point where the show sheds its innocent demeanor but also in a show that revolves around young women being transformed into twisted and corrupted older women through desultory "contracts" in which a male figure promises the girls their utmost desires only to destroy their purity

[Party Moth]

lol if you want overanalysis how about the fact that Mami's death by decapitation corresponds to the common jacobean pun where beheading = losing virginity (i.e., cutting the maidenhead), making the specific method of death appropriate not only as the point where the show sheds its innocent demeanor but also in a show that revolves around young women being transformed into twisted and corrupted older women through desultory "contracts" in which a male figure promises the girls their utmost desires only to destroy their purity

That's the spirit!

If you want to go even further, the score as arranged in the film adaptation of the anime paints Mami in the key of Ab major (in the track "Credens Justitiam") with a pretense of G major (G being the key of motherly qualities). This gives her a tonal advantage over the witches who are forever locked in F and G minor, until Madoka's words in episode 3 put her into overconfidence mode (the track "No more fear"). She begins radically modulating until she finally lands on D major (key of the hero), a tritone away from her prior tonic. This coincides with the 18th and 19th century notion in classical music that to modulate to the tritone of one's key is a death sentence, and is effectively carried out by the cheese witch who enters in G minor ("Wo ist die Kase?"). Mami's D major is a cadential V chord in G minor, making her inferior and thus mortal.

The death of the show's innocence and heroics is carried out again in a similar tonal manner in the sequel film Rebellion as the ultimate cadential modulation of Homura's character from E minor to A minor

Other mediums take note you're being outdone by a show about little girls

[Misses Elise-chan!]

Any story involving Yuri is good for me. Yaoi is bad writing imo.

[I'm gay dabadeedabada]

That's the spirit!

If you want to go even further, the score as arranged in the film adaptation of the anime paints Mami in the key of Ab major (in the track "Credens Justitiam") with a pretense of G major (G being the key of motherly qualities). This gives her a tonal advantage over the witches who are forever locked in F and G minor, until Madoka's words in episode 3 put her into overconfidence mode (the track "No more fear"). She begins radically modulating until she finally lands on D major (key of the hero), a tritone away from her prior tonic. This coincides with the 18th and 19th century notion in classical music that to modulate to the tritone of one's key is a death sentence, and is effectively carried out by the cheese witch who enters in G minor ("Wo ist die Kase?"). Mami's D major is a cadential V chord in G minor, making her inferior and thus mortal.

The death of the show's innocence and heroics is carried out again in a similar tonal manner in the sequel film Rebellion as the ultimate cadential modulation of Homura's character from E minor to A minor

Other mediums take note you're being outdone by a show about little girls

Holy moly, it goes pretty deep. Based Yuki Kajiura. Also; where did you learn all this anyway?

Any story involving Yuri is good for me. Yaoi is bad writing imo.

I remember why I blocked you on IPC now!

[Party Moth]

Holy moly, it goes pretty deep. Based Yuki Kajiura. Also; where did you learn all this anyway?

Through my own tonal harmonic analysis of the show's soundtrack. Classical music up until the 20th century carries with it tonal relationships between keys, intervals, and motifs built off of centuries of studying what the previous guys did before. The tritone situation is probably most well known as being the very basis of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde: Tristan is in F minor, and Isolde in B major. Their love is forbidden, for if one jumps to the tritone of the other, they will die. The very musical world around them cannot support their relationship (Wagner tackles this with them trying to meet up midway with an augmented sixth), and that is played off as tragic.

Homura is not immune to this in Rebellion: in "The battle is over," a piano and cello duet in Eb major plays as the girls are gazing off into the sunset. This is a tritone away from Homura's imminent key, A minor. At the final cadence of the piece, if you look onscreen during the movie, you can actually see the cadence force Homura awake as if she's unaware of where she is. The focus is directly on her face when it happens. Eb major is not a key that really exists in tv series!Madoka, and this leaves Homura disconcerted from then on out. She's primarily the tonal focus of the movie, much as she is the primary character of it.

Kajiura's father was an operatic aficionado and she spent a number of years actually growing up in Germany and being directly exposed to German opera. It's been a fascination of hers and I don't doubt that these progressions are intentional. The show is just simply so in-depth everywhere else.

[General Banzai]

That's the spirit!

If you want to go even further, the score as arranged in the film adaptation of the anime paints Mami in the key of Ab major (in the track "Credens Justitiam") with a pretense of G major (G being the key of motherly qualities). This gives her a tonal advantage over the witches who are forever locked in F and G minor, until Madoka's words in episode 3 put her into overconfidence mode (the track "No more fear"). She begins radically modulating until she finally lands on D major (key of the hero), a tritone away from her prior tonic. This coincides with the 18th and 19th century notion in classical music that to modulate to the tritone of one's key is a death sentence, and is effectively carried out by the cheese witch who enters in G minor ("Wo ist die Kase?"). Mami's D major is a cadential V chord in G minor, making her inferior and thus mortal.

The death of the show's innocence and heroics is carried out again in a similar tonal manner in the sequel film Rebellion as the ultimate cadential modulation of Homura's character from E minor to A minor

Other mediums take note you're being outdone by a show about little girls

I don't know jack dick about music unfortunately or I'd get in on this for sure

It's a shame too I'd love to get into some in depth Madoka analysis/discussion but it seems I missed the hype train by a few years

It's a shame too because it seems I missed the whole Madoka hype train by a few years

[Misses Elise-chan!]

Holy moly, it goes pretty deep. Based Yuki Kajiura. Also; where did you learn all this anyway? I remember why I blocked you on IPC now!

I am offended. If you want I could learn to love yaoi.