Kathryn Diaz – Bitch Flicks

Moving Us Forward: ‘Carmilla’ the Series

This is a guest post by Kathryn Diaz.

The YouTube web series Carmilla might just be the internet’s next best-kept secret. Often compared to Buffy, Carmilla is about a girl, her vampire, and her friends taking on life’s challenges with a dash of apocalypse-stopping on the side. But Carmilla is not a derivative of the 90s classic or anything else you’ve re-watched this year. Carmilla is the next step we have all secretly been waiting for. It is a treatise on the power of teamwork and love. In the words of one of its many heroines, it’s about girl-ing the hell up. And lesbians. We cannot forget the lesbians.

No, but seriously–at a time when the most popular gay ships on Tumblr are queer-baiting extravaganzas and TV lesbians have a tendency to be either invisible or dead, seeing not one, but at least three queer girls whose sexuality is present and normalized matters. Laura Hollis is a journalism student who has seen every episode of Veronica Mars. Danny Lawrence is an active member of the Summer Society, and a TA. Carmilla is a femme fatale in combat boots and heavy eyeliner who studies philosophy when she isn’t feeling Coleridge-y about her life. These young women have been written as women, not stereotypes or labels with legs. While ample time is given to their love lives and personal desires, it is neither the sole nor central part of their personalities and character arcs. We have seen this kind of character before, from Willow on Buffy to Cosima on Orphan Black. But these women, and many others on TV, inhabit a peripheral space as supporting characters. On Carmilla, they take center stage. As someone still working out their sexuality, I cannot emphasize enough how refreshing and heartening this is to see.

Besides its open queerness, the other big thing to consider when thinking about Carmilla is just how much of a reinvention of familiar stories and genres it is. Most obviously, this series is technically an adaptation of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 gothic novella of the same name. For this reason, it is sometimes lined up with other YouTube modern retellings of classics such as The Lizzie Bennett Diaries. However, Carmilla shares more in common with the emergence of radical re-imaginings in media like Wicked and Maleficent. Further still, the new setting and plot that Carmilla adapts in its transformation nestles it in the same company as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Like Maleficent, Carmilla consciously retools its plot and characters to chip away at oppressive elements in their source material and introduce feminist ideologies in the reinvented narrative. However, Carmilla takes things a step further by doing more than just turning the plot around and changing original antagonist into an anti-hero. The series transforms all the prominent characters into new, compelling versions of themselves. Where Le Fanu’s pure hearted heroine Laura timidly speculated about the horrors around her, web-series Laura starts her story as the only person at her university willing to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her roommate. The caretakers from Le Fanu’s story, Mme. Perrodon and Mlle. De Lafontaine, become neurotic maternal floor don, Perry, and genderqueer science whiz who isn’t afraid to face actual monsters in the library head on, LaFontaine. Carmilla gets what the production team of Maleficent did not: creating an anti-heroine of awesome need not come at the expense of the rest of Team Hero (I’m looking at you, Knotgrass, Thistletwit, and Flittle) and when it doesn’t, the story can benefit greatly.

Because of its subject matter, “rag-tag group of heroes” makeup, and “stop the Big Bad” plot, Carmilla also shares many elements with Buffy, as earlier mentioned. Whether intentional or not, to look at the show without this comparison might be missing an important part of the picture. There is a snark-tastic sense of humor between both shows that keeps the story from falling into pure melodrama. Carmilla’s dialogue includes such genre references as “honest to Lestat” and a bout of black comedy involving sock puppets. Beyond this and the presence of a brooding vamp with a hidden heart of gold, we also have light haired spunky heroines, love triangles, brain-sucking baddies, even a Big Bad fake-out before the reveal of the true villain at the season’s halfway point. And yet here, too, Carmilla can be seen as an endeavor to go beyond what was done before. Here there be no burying of our gays or turning them into revenge monsters.

Also worthy of notice: there be no singling out of our heroine either. No one is a Chosen One and no one has to go into a big showdown alone. Laura is the central protagonist, but she is not inherently the Alpha girl of the team she assembles. On a more episode-by-episode scale, the dynamics between Laura and Friends rejects any hierarchal structure. In fact, it is precisely when some of the friends start to play “I Know Best” that tensions emerge. The essence of what commentary comes out of these debacles seems to be this: that when something is big enough, personal agendas come second to the greater good and that love should not come between individuals and their autonomy. Carmilla rejects the possessive or selfish facets of love as attractive. However, this does not mean that it makes flawless do-gooders out of its heroines. Without getting even more spoiler-y (because you need to watch this series and watch it now), many a member of Team Hero has their negative moment and, though the good fight and teamwork must continue, transgressions are not always forgiven easily. By the season’s finale, not every relationship has a happy closure. Understandably, it’s the differences in the Carmilla-verse that make it feel like its own place. More specifically, a place that is simultaneously more realistic and more optimistic than the Sunnydale Hellmouth.

This is not to diminish the good in either Maleficent or Buffy. Personally, I’m a shameless fan of both, flaws and all. They are both strong, impactful works that have influenced many. But we are settling for less than what we deserve if we believe that they are as good as it gets. Even Carmilla isn’t as good as it gets. What Carmilla is is the next step–one that is worth taking and seriously well worth watching.

Kathryn Diaz is a writer living in Houston, Texas. She is currently pursuing a B.A in English at the University of Houston. You can follow her at The Telescope for more of her work.

Vampire Girls: Claudia and Eli

This guest post by Kathryn Diaz appears as part of our theme week on The Terror of Little Girls.

In the great monster mash team of terrifying children, the vampire girl is varsity captain. On the one hand, they are dolls forever: trapped in their prepubescent bodies for hundreds to thousands of years without a single curl losing its bounce. On the other hand, with hundreds of years of life come hundreds of years of experience, knowledge, even maturity. The great perverse contradiction of an innocent but worldly, pure but sexual girl beings that characterizes so many fantasies and paranoias about young girls comes to a larger than life reality with one part vampire bite added to sugar, spice, and everything nice. It’s a lot to take in. Especially since in practice, these horrific fantasies are much more complicated than they appear and often pack a harder punch than their makers bargained for. Because little girls aren’t dolls for men to play with. They have wills of their own, and one day they learn to use it with bite.

It’s worth mentioning that one of the most famous vampire girls in cinema is coveted by her makers for her girlishness. Claudia isn’t just raised in the vampire way by Louis and Lestat in Interview with the Vampire, she’s worshiped for it. From the moment she transforms from a dirty, malnourished urchin to a cherub-like creature that asks ever so sweetly for more blood, she is the apple of Lestat’s eye. He is charmed by her coquettish innocence and praises such traditionally feminine virtues as neatness. Even before this moment, Claudia represents hope for Lestat and Louis’ relationship and redemption for Louis’ conscience because of her apparent youth and innocence.

In the montage that depicts Claudia “growing up,” we see her surrounded by servants, dresses, and frills and privileges fit for a princess. One in particular has her standing on a pedestal in the center of a room–for trying on dresses, of course. But the imagery of her as a worshiped being, or perhaps a favorite doll upon a shelf is not to be dismissed. As Louis explains in his voice-over, “To me she was a child” and “to Lestat, a pupil.” Claudia is, in short, made into the desires of her makers.

This is not an uncommon motif in the vampire genre, or even in the broader spectrum of monster-making. Dracula makes his brides after his lusts, Frankenstein’s creature asks for a bride after his loneliness. Louis and Lestat are in good company, but Claudia manages to break away from the pack of female creations by sheer force of will and determined disobedience. She is more than discontent, she is proactive. And she isn’t alone.

Like all vampires, Eli was made by someone once upon a time. Both Let the Right One In and the American remake Let Me In are purposefully vague about the details of her origin story, but we can depend on the basic aspects of the common vampire myth to fill in some of the blanks. We don’t know what happened to her maker either, but their absence and Eli’s lack of preoccupation with them seems to support the idea that she doesn’t miss them. Instead, Eli roams the world as she chooses, finding human partners to help her survive along the way. She has broken away from the hold of whatever agenda she was created for and spends the film working her own. Like Claudia, Eli rebells against the routine of her lifestyle for her own desires. Her protector, Hakan, is comfortable in the way of their life and in their solitary household. He has a possessive devotion to Eli as evidenced by his behavior when the subject of Eli’s new friend, Oskar, comes up. Eli is quick to remind him that while he may play the role of her father to the outside world, he doesn’t have any authority authority over who she chooses to spend her time with.

Claudia’s rebellions are much less cooly carried out, perhaps in part because they are nearly always to some degree, unsuccessful. Like Eli, Claudia tries to gain some ownership of her identity through trying to control her appearance and how she is perceived by others. She tries to take her “perfect” doll-like appearance into her own hands by cutting her hair. She dresses older and when she is alone with Louis, she adopts the countenance of a woman as old as she feels rather than that of the child she looks like. These are different but comparable tactics to Eli insisting that she is twelve and maintaining an awareness and hold of childlike things such as puzzles and games. Both of these girls do not want to be overridden into someone else’s idea because of their circumstances. But Claudia cannot get what she wants out of her actions. Her hair grows back when she cuts it, strangers refuse to take her seriously when she dresses older, capturing and drawing grown women does not transform her by any manner of alchemy. But Claudia does accept her fate without a fight, perhaps lest Lestat mistake her for the dolls he buys her every year. So she breaks the rules, pushes her luck, and she tries her hand at a little bit of vampire-on-vampire murder. When Louis starts to show how uncomfortable he is about the deed, Claudia tells him “he deserved to die” and later, that she did it “so we could be free.” She knows, perhaps even better than Louis, that he is a created monster like her too.

Claudia and Eli are both determined, willful girls strong in their sense of self and what they want. It also feels fairly safe to say that the horror derived from them is from a fear of how much they can do and accomplish on their own terms and the consequences of getting on their bad side. I mean, these girls aren’t afraid of things getting a little bloody. At all. But it’s also worth noting that both of these films are invested in their perspectives. Interview with the Vampire is almost devoid of human characters and Let the Right One In is about Oskar and Eli’s growing relationship together. The loved ones in their lives adore them, seek comfort in them, and stand beside them. We read Eli’s notes and watch her quiet excitement as she gets back in touch with what she loves in the world. We see Claudia’s smile as she dances with Louis in France and her forlorn expressions as they share in their loneliness together. As frightful as the lengths these two girls will go to are, it’s hard not to want them to succeed. We are made to understand the frustration and anguish of their positions and the ache of hoping for something as universal and fundamental as control over one’s life and identity. Even though one of these girls succeeds in her story and the other does not, it says something that these films are able to clearly articulate that a little girl is not just pretty and cunning and mysterious. A girl is also every bit as complex and full of yearning as her older male counterparts. She can be as fierce as anything else that goes bump in the night. And sometimes? She’ll win. And you’ll be glad she did.

Kathryn Diaz is a writer living in Houston, Texas. She is currently pursuing a B.A in English at the University of Houston. You can follow her at The Telescope for more of her work.

Fearless Friendship! Usagi and Rei

Growing up isn’t cute. At six or 16 or anywhere in between, figuring out who you are and what your place in the world is isn’t sparkly fun-times. The best you can hope for is to have a real friend to muddle through the worst of it with you, someone who is having just as much of a crazy time as you are, who will run to your defense, give you pep talks when you’re about to face the Dark Kingdom, and shamelessly make fun of you for being such a crybaby after you call her a meanie.

This guest post by Kathryn Diaz appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.

For real: shiny makeup senshi or not, the world needs more best friendships like Usagi and Rei’s from Sailor Moon. These two girls could not be more different on the surface, but does that stop Usagi from wanting to save her from sudden danger? You bet your moon tiara not. Even after she accidentally tried to exorcise an evil spirit from her and gave her a harsh brush-off when she tried to offer help, saving Rei is still Usagi’s top priority when she sees her in danger. In fact, it’s Rei’s peril that prompts fraidy-cat Usagi to find her courage and transform into her super-powered self at all. How’s that for serious friendship? But what really puts things over the top is how quickly they fall into sharp banter and jibes.

The Rei that teases Usagi about her crush on Tuxedo Mask, rolls her eyes when she’s goofing off on merry-go-rounds instead of fighting evil, and wrestles on the floor with her for a Sailor V book is a far cry from the testy, aloof shrine maiden she was when they first met, and yet she transitions into this openness very quickly where Usagi is concerned. For Rei, acting out her frustration in honest, albeit childish, ways is a sign of trust and comfortability. There is no other senshi on the team she leaps to go toe-to-toe with. In the second episode after they meet, Rei all but comes to blows with Usagi to get her and a small child away from the Jadeite-trap-of-the-week. Though normally cool and competent, she drags them off in an embarrassing spectacle. But after they’re called out, we see her begrudgingly riding the kiddie train with Usagi as a kind of apology, even though she knows she was right. This is because Rei cares under all her criticism and attitude. Cracking jokes at Usagi’s expense is her way of saying “I love you.” And for her part, Usagi speaks the same language as Rei when the situation calls for it. She spies on Rei’s talks with Mamoru and races to score a date with him before she does. She trips her, she shouts that she’s a meanie whenever they’re in front of their friends, and teases her about her crush on Yuichiro. In short, these two can exercise their anime teen angst on common ground until they’re practically blue in the face.

Nothing says I love you like fighting over who gets to read Sailor V first — Nothing says I love you like fighting over who gets to read *Sailor V* first

This is not to say that Usagi and Rei are simply mutual punching bags for each other. As fellow senshi Makoto points out, “The more you fight, the better friends you are.” And are they ever friends. After taking a step too far in one of their “fights,” Usagi uses her disguise pen to pose as a fortune teller to help Rei get with a boy she likes. The plan falls apart, of course, but the point lies in the extent and sincerity of her effort. In a later episode, Usagi and Rei are trapped in a snow drift. To pass the time, Usagi breaks out a musical locket from the then-missing Tuxedo Mask. But as soon as Rei sits beside her, she puts it away and asks if she hurt Rei’s feelings. She knows she and Rei have been playing tug-of-war with Tuxedo Mask; she knows that when he was taken, and Rei was upset that she didn’t fight for him. Even though their problems have multiplied a good tenfold since then, Usagi is worried that she might have awoken genuinely hurt feelings in Rei. There is a line between these two. They give each other ample permission to communicate in implications, gestures, shouts and screams, but if any of their verbal blows actually bruise, they’ll race to pedal back. In the scene, Rei shrugs off Usagi’s worries. “Why would I think that?” she says. “Honestly, I’ve already given up on Mamoru–I mean–Tuxedo Mask.” Not only does she assure Usagi, but she takes the conflict off the table. She’s sad, of course, but any affection for Tuxedo Mask comes second to Usagi. Further proof: she steps away from communicating via implication and harsh humor to be comforting and frank with Usagi. It isn’t just what she’s doing for Usagi in this moment, it’s how.

Of course, because Usagi and Rei’s friendship thrives less on heart-to-hearts and more on pulling faces and well-meant bickering, Rei follows up this tender moment with snipping, “If you don’t live in happiness with Mamoru, I’ll punish you!” Usagi smiles. She knows exactly what Rei is trying to say.

The strongest demonstration of Rei’s friendship with Usagi doesn’t come until one of the last episodes of Sailor Moon‘s first season. In a rare moment of thorough planning, Usagi has decided to pretend to have fallen out with the other senshi in the hope that the Dark Kingdom will come after her and take her to Tuxedo Mask. The bad guys take the bait, but rather than whisk her away, they begin to torture her. Unbeknownst to them, the other sailor senshi are lurking nearby, and they want to call the plan off and save their friend. What stops them? Rei. Rei knows what’s at stake and how important it is to Usagi that she have the chance to save the boy she loves. Rei’s bond with Usagi is one such that she can be in as much anguish as the other senshi at watching Usagi in pain, but have enough wherewithal to stay focused on the mission that Usagi has put in place. Of course, when to some of the senshi Rei’s relationship with Usagi looks more like veiled contempt than ill-concealed devotion, questions arise about her true motives. Makoto accuses her of hating Usagi all along. Rei reveals that she’s only lasted this long because she loves Usagi.

Rei's truth is heartbreaking — Rei’s truth is heartbreaking

In the end, Rei breaks the plan without so much as a “never mind” to the other senshi. She doesn’t care that she just insisted otherwise 10 seconds ago and she doesn’t care that the bad guys will know that the jig is up or that Usagi might be mad that she went back on her word. Rei is fearless. She knows that Usagi will accept and forgive her. Because if there’s one thing you can count on from a friend that you can name-call, boy chase, and fight evil with, it’s that you are always accepted and always forgiven. If that’s not true friendship, I don’t know what is.

This look is what it's all about — This look is what it’s all about

Kathryn Diaz is a writer living in Houston, Texas. She is currently pursuing a B.A in English at the University of Houston. You can follow her at The Telescope for more of her work.

Watch Me Shine: ‘Legally Blonde’ and My Path to Girl Power

My attachment wasn’t about Elle Woods or embracing hallmarks of traditional femininity that get belittled by western mainstream society (that would come later). I was all about lyrics like, “That’s not the way/ Nice girls behave/ Oh yeah I know/ You told me/ It’s not your choice/ I have a voice/ I guess you just don’t hear me.” It spoke to me on a spiritual level.

This guest post by Kathryn Diaz appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

I was 9 when Legally Blonde first sparkled in movie theaters. I didn’t understand what the Bend-and-Snap was all about, half the jokes went over my head, and I was only mostly sure that a sorority was some kind of real thing. What I did know was that “Watch Me Shine” by Joanna Pacitti was my new favorite song, like, ever.

Here was a song that felt commanding and fun, something that was opening a gate to me that my Mary-Kate and Ashley makeup set never did. I played “Watch Me Shine” in the car while my mom drove me to school every morning. I stumbled over the rapid-fire lyrics at the top of my lungs and whipped my pony tail back and forth with shameless enjoyment no matter how sleepy or cranky I’d woken up. At school, I replayed the montage over and over in my head. If I just thought about the song long enough, I was sure I would become as confident and fearless as Elle. When I met my challenges, I would march through them with determined glares and that song. If this was what the rest of Girl Power sounded like, I wanted to listen non-stop.

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/u5XRYBLfjhI”]

Studying never looked so fierce.

My love for the Legally Blonde soundtrack eventually expanded to include Hoku’s defiantly happy-go-lucky tune “Perfect Day,” “One Girl Revolution” by Superchick, and “We Could Still Belong Together” by Lisa Loeb. “We Could Still Belong Together” was, and still is, an unexpected win. Legally Blonde plays the song as Elle makes the trek from home to Harvard to kick off her quest to win back Warner, but the whole song is something of a give-away about the film’s real philosophy on love: couples that belong together are ones that let the partners be their imperfect, interrupting, complicated human selves without any fuss.

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/mdU40HDmkbg”]

Why yes, women can be in a relationship without walking on a perfection tightrope.

As I hit that sweet spot between anger and anxiety with the rest of puberty, “Can’t Get Me Down” by Lo-Ball climbed to the top of my favorites from the soundtrack. By this time, my life looked even less like the positive friendship-driven fairy tale Legally Blonde existed in, but my CD had transcended its origins. My attachment wasn’t about Elle Woods or embracing hallmarks of traditional femininity that get belittled by western mainstream society (that would come later). I was all about lyrics like, “That’s not the way/ Nice girls behave/ Oh yeah I know/ You told me/ It’s not your choice/ I have a voice/ I guess you just don’t hear me.” It spoke to me on a spiritual level.

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/Fzo1uqFS-jU”]

Much angst was set to this song.

One day some of my friends and I ended up pulling out our overstuffed CD collections and taking safety pins and paper clips to their surfaces. Scratching CDs, especially ones we’d had for a long time, was a common pastime whenever we felt “bored,” that heavy catch-all for everything we didn’t want to name or didn’t know how to. I didn’t have a lot of CDs in the first place, so my fun was usually in carving swirls and rain clouds over the discs everyone else had finished with, but that day I couldn’t get out of contributing something. I’d already pretended to complain about how much I hated my pink CDs. Surprisingly, my friends didn’t believe I had any, that they weren’t “me” and I was clearly making something up. This was true, but I was not about to correct them. My love for my pink CDs would stay a deeply guarded secret for a long, long time. Through the maze of 12-year-old peer pressure logic, I decided I had no choice but to show them something and dismantle the hell out of it.

I sacrificed my Princess Diaries soundtrack. It was pinker than pink and, more importantly, it was not Legally Blonde. Legally Blonde was hidden under my Evanescence album where no one would question my cool. I wanted to hold onto it more than I wanted to be approved of. My Legally Blonde soundtrack was important, even if that idea seemed ridiculous and bizarre.

I held onto it for as long as I could. When no one was around to listen, I made the CD the big mainstay in my Walkman. My favorite song circled through the tracks and my emotions fluctuated as much as the genres from track to track. It was my big, bolstering secret. But eventually I found other movies, other albums, and inevitably other means of listening to music. My head filled up with more ideas, more role models and anthems. I stopped worrying about having too many sparkles or not enough. By the time I lost my Legally Blonde soundtrack, I was more put out than crushed.

I was in college when I resolved to track it down again. I had finished my first Women’s Studies class, I had just bought a new iPod, and I wanted to party like it was 2001, or at least have a nostalgic dance session to commemorate my gateway ticket to feminism. I blasted all the old songs on YouTube and made my friends dance to “Perfect Day” with me.

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/84odSvKFrkY”]

This song still nails that “last day of term” feeling for me.

We were young women starting our lives for ourselves, and when I rocked out to cotton-candy light pop, I was going to do it without being ashamed of sparkles or silliness. I knew the Bend-and-Snap was a little problematic, at least one of the stereotypes employed for the side characters was unfriendly at best, and the movie that had lead me to my gateway ticket to feminism wasn’t perfect. But Legally Blonde was still about finding strength in yourself and female friendship and defying the patriarchy with style, and the sparkle-covered soundtrack was still bursting with a shameless power that made me feel like I could conquer the world. That was plenty of reason to shout, “watch me shine” just a few more times for me.

Kathryn Diaz is a writer living in Houston, Texas. You can follow her at The Telescope for more of her work.

Friendship Is More Than Magic: Feminism and Relationships in ‘Puella Magi Madoka Magica’

Imagine a world where young girls are trapped in a system that sees them as commodities. Imagine that any girl could be tricked into giving herself up to a life that is by all appearances filled with magic, beauty, excitement, and good, but exists to feed off the energy of their spirit. The girls are purposely pushed to their limits. When they have become too cynical or burdened, the system condemns them and sends in younger counterparts to pick them off. Imagine that these girls are pitted against each other, that once they have been lured in with heroic, fairy tale trappings, they are encouraged to turn around and use the power that they should be grateful for to use and destroy each other. At the top of this system sits a small white creature. He just can’t understand why girls get so upset when they learn the facts of life they signed up for.

…..That wasn’t very hard to imagine after all, was it?

Kicking ass and taking names is more fun with your friends

This guest post by Kathryn Diaz appears as part of our theme week on Children’s Television.

…..That wasn’t very hard to imagine after all, was it?

The world of Gen Urobuchi and Alex Von David’s 12-episode anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica (PMMM from here on out) is a bleak one, and the frills of magic and a futuristic backdrop don’t make it any less recognizable. Girls of a certain age are propositioned by manipulative bastard Kyubey to make a contract with him. One wish, one miracle, and they can become beautiful guardians of justice. It’s the kind of rhetoric that sits next door to “any girl can be a princess” and “you can make your dreams come true if you just believe.” And yes, it’s a trap.

Kyubey is so cute you almost forget he’s evil.

The Magical Girls can’t use up too much of their magic, or else their soul gem becomes dirty. To keep the gem “pure,” the girls must earn grief seeds by annihilating witches. Sometimes this means letting a Witch get away with murder until it’s nice and big. Sometimes this means killing another girl for ownership of the seed. That’s just how it is. Don’t whine about hurting other girls, don’t you know they’re after you too? Don’t you want to do the smart thing? In Kyubey’s Magical Girl system–you perish as a girl or suffer long enough to turn into a Witch. That’s right. The Witches are the Magical Girls that couldn’t keep their gems pure enough and lost hope. But don’t expect Kyubey to say that before he orders you to defeat them.

What keeps PMMM from being more than just a grim tableau of systemized manipulation and elevates it into bona-fide feminist fairy tale territory is the girls that populate the landscape and the lengths they go to help each other. Meet Mami, Sayaka, Kyoko, Homura, and Madoka.

Mami Tomoe is the team mom. She comes onto the scene to the tune of her own theme song and invites Madoka and Sayaka over for tea and snacks after rescuing them from a Witch. Mami is the advice giver, the protector, the good example big sister. “It’s a really hard decision, isn’t it?” She says about Kyubey’s contract. “There’s no reason to rush into it.” Ever assertive, Kyubey interrupts, “Though for me, the sooner you decide, the better.” Mami dismisses him with a laugh, “Nobody likes a boy who pressures girls to do things.”

Sayaka Miki is the black-and-white idealist. She shuffles events, facts, and people into good or bad categories as quickly as she cracks jokes or shrugs off her angst. Sayaka is the one who realizes that she and Madoka can’t think of any good wishes because they’ve lived such sheltered lives and wonders why it’s so unfair. When being a Magical Girl doesn’t turn out the way she wanted, Sayaka resolves to keep fighting. “I’m going to be a different kind of Magical Girl from all of you,” she says. “I’ll be the only Magical Girl who won’t use her magic for herself.”

Kyoko Sakura plays a tough game. She’s a loner, and doesn’t have too many qualms with eliminating other girls or letting go of small prey. “The weak have to give way to the strong,” she says. But underneath her talk, Kyoko has a heart as sensitive as Sayaka’s, and her outlook on life has been earned just as bitterly as any other experienced girl’s. In the end, Kyoko can’t abandon a Magical Girl she identifies with, and proves that she’s as loyal as she is fierce.

Homura Akemi is a woman on a mission, and nothing and no one can stop her. Although we learn that Homura was once a timid girl, the young woman who races against time to stop Kyubey and save Madoka is anything but. Her aloof demeanor is her armor, and her determination is her greatest weapon. The core of Homura’s motive is love. Since she first became a magical girl, Homura has carried a devoted, undying love in her heart. “It’s the only thing I have left to guide me,” she confesses quietly.

Madoka Kaname spends most of the series as “the best friend” of the Magical Girls. She follows her friends on their hunts so they won’t be alone, crying, “This just can’t be right!” from the sidelines. She is a true comforter and supporter of the girls. It’s her hope from the time she’s rescued by Mami to the very end that Magical Girls stand with each other in spite of their differences and support one another.

As mentioned earlier, all these girls, in one way or another, eventually try to help each other in massive ways. These actions in all the forms they take are based in communicating experiences and developing empathy. Not only do these actions form the crux of the Magical Girls’ character arcs, but they serve as the major plot points of the larger PMMM plot. Let’s say that again: the most important events in this story are girls looking out for girls in a system where they are explicitly not supposed to.

Mami begins the story as Ms. Helpful, but her self-imposed responsibility for Madoka and Sayaka extends beyond showing them the ropes. Mami wants to give them what she never had: the right to an informed, carefully weighed choice. Mami tells Madoka and Sayaka about the lore of Magical Girls to make sure they’ll fully understand the tradition they’ll be becoming a part of. “You have the rare chance to have any wish granted, but remember that wish lies side-by-side with death.” She doesn’t bother with subtlety or ominous words. Life is too short for that, and her junior Magical Girls deserve better. Mami’s most meaningful reveal to the girls, however, is not in lore or an anecdote, but in her very personal feelings. “I only push myself and pretend to be cool,” she tells Madoka. “When I’m scared or hurting, there’s no one I can talk to. All I can do is cry on my own.” Madoka understands, or at least she does her best. She asks to be the person Mami needs and be her Magical Girl partner in justice. Madoka and Mami’s friendship is cemented through sharing and empathy. This has such a profound impact on Mami that she races and twirls through her next fight, overjoyed. “I’m not afraid of anything anymore,” she says. “Because I’m not alone anymore!”

Nothing raises the spirit like true friendship

The other profound heart-to-heart in PMMM is between Kyoko and Sayaka. When Sayaka takes the truth about Kyubey’s Magical Girl system particularly hard, Kyoko’s remedy is to take her out for some air and show Sayaka why her self-serving approach to life isn’t so bad after all. “If you only live for yourself, you only have your own mistakes to pay for,” Kyoko says. She didn’t always think that way, but when her selfless wish lead to the deaths of her whole family, she reconsidered. Kyoko’s tragic history doesn’t change Sayaka’s mind about being a selfless Magical Girl, but it does wash away the violent animosity between them and establish a deep understanding based on empathy. From this moment on, the two girls are bonded. Sayaka speaks candidly with Kyoko about her mounting disenchantment and grief. Kyoko comes to care for Sayaka enough to stay beside her even after she turns into a Witch. Because of how they’ve connected, Kyoko understands the kind of pain festering in Sayaka’s Witch. Since she cannot change her back, Kyoko decides to sacrifice her life to end Sayaka’s Witch, staying beside her to the very end and saving the rest of the Magical Girls.

Sass-offs make great groundwork for love and sacrifice

Homura, as it turns out, has been using her time manipulation powers to try and save Madoka from Kyubey. Over. And over. And Over. The more she tries, the more ruthless her determination becomes. Homura gives up all other hopes and aspirations for one impossible task. “It’s the only thing I have left to guide me,” she admits quietly. Why? Because Madoka was kind to her. She showed her friendship and love, and Homura can’t bear the thought of the world losing her forever. The story embraces this devotion when the reason behind Madoka’s exceptional magic potential is revealed. Every timeline Homura negated to save Madoka is stacked inside of her. Every time Homura decided not to give up, every time Homura let a piece of herself go so she could keep trying is nested in Madoka’s soul, and it has only made her stronger.

To repay Homura and save everyone she has ever loved, Madoka gets out from the sidelines and puts the strength Homura’s love has given her to good use. It turns out there is something in the world worth becoming a magical girl for: “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! All those who fought against Witches, who believed in hope as Magical Girls–I don’t want to see them cry. If any rule or law stands in the way of that…I will destroy it. I will rewrite it.”

Madoka rewrites Kyubey-archy and creates a new universe

That’s right. Madoka uses her wish to undo Kyubey’s system and ease the suffering of every Magical Girl there ever was and will be. No more systemized destruction between girls for Kyubey’s benefit. No more exploitation of girls’ hope. No more fighting Witches. Madoka takes the idea of ‘wish fulfillment fantasy’ to a spectacular new level, but I did say this story was a fairy tale, remember? As Madoka’s wish comes true, we see her visit girls in ancient civilizations, in war-ravaged countries, girls of color, girls with different languages, with different cultures and beliefs. She touches their soul gem to take the despair away and shares a moment of understanding with them. When they close their eyes they die, smiling.

This montage matters not just so we can cry into our laptops at the impossible beauty of a little girl willing a kinder world into existence, but so that we know Madoka has not invented world peace. The world still has curses. Life is still imperfect and girls still suffer and die young. Madoka isn’t even Madoka anymore. Standing with every Magical Girl at once means becoming primordial force in the universe, unseen and unknown to those that aren’t Magical Girls. What is achieved is fundamental comfort, peace, and hope. “You aren’t just giving us hope,” Mami says. “You’re becoming hope itself. The hope for us all.” Because Madoka has been a source of comfort and empathy from the beginning, this means that “the hope for us all” starts with reaching out to fellow girls and women across barriers. This means that standing with girls against forces that would have you tear each other apart can help change the world. Not too fantastical after all, huh?

Like all good fairy tales, PMMM sweetens all the tragedy that came before and wraps its rich symbolism in a neat bow. At the end, tucks you in bed with a moral to give sweet dreams:

“Don’t forget, always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember her, you are not alone.”

And, you know, there’s always room to be that kind of Magical Girl too.

Kathryn Diaz is a writer living in Houston, Texas. You can follow her at The Telescope for more of her work.