This is a speculative theological/metaphysical theory for the Madoka Magica universe as interpreted in @ttshieronym​’s To The Stars. It will attempt to describe most of the story’s interesting phenomena with a few related principles. (My first efforts towards this live on Reddit.)

A nonexclusive perpetual irrevocable transferrable sublicensable license to the use of these ideas is hereby granted to @ttshieronym, just to make it 100% clear that no one’s interested in pulling any copyright copywrongs. :P



The Physical Realm

There exists a physical universe, governed by certain laws, the likes of which you may find in a physics textbook. It contains things like Matter and Energy in a spacetime matrix. These laws describe the way one configuration of matter and energy in spacetime is related to another at a different part of spacetime. This universe is for the most part unremarkable except for the existence of faster-than-light travel, which is only really interesting if we can see someone using it to violate causality in creative ways, which hasn’t happened.

It is proposed that there is only one physical universe that is real. While chapter 54 introduced us to many universes, it seems clear many of them did not exist as reality, and Madoka says nothing to suggest she is pursuing plans for more than one real universe.

The Metaphysical Realm

The metaphysical realm is a sort of philosophy-space, without time or space or distance - as unphysical as a mathematical set. This realm contains timeless entities. (Afterlife-Mami refers to Madoka’s fate among these entities in Episode 12). Some of these entities are souls; Clarisse reports that Madoka reports that souls are timeless [TTS Ch. 45].

Souls are one type of timeless entity. Potential-states of physical reality and its constituent component are another. Concepts are proposed as a third. The states of physical reality which we are not merely potential but also “real” are defined as those related to the concept of Existence.

Entities may have relationships to other entities, and to the physical universe. Indeed, a timeless entity’s primary observable property is the way that it affects relationships. Relationships are not timeless, or at least not all timeless - they may be placed in an ordering relationship with each other.

Timeless entities are unchanging by definition, always the same, like a mathematical function. However, the way that they interact with each other and with reality is affected by the relationships they are in, and since relationships are related to time, the entity’s behavior may change over time.



Relationships between entities are thus of utmost importance to metaphysics. This may be why Madoka likes to give relationship advice.

Souls & Their Bodies

A soul is related to a certain collection of matter located in the physical universe. In the case of things which we call “human souls” this is usually this is a human body; however, magical girls find themselves related to a soul gem instead. This relationship is not always an exclusive relationship, but usually has been, with a few magical-girl exceptions. Version 2 TacComps illustrate non-exclusive relationships [TTS ch45] and these can be expected to proliferate in the future.



A soul is a discrete, unique entity. There may be many like it, perhaps even so close that you could hypothetically exchange them and get identical results, but only one of them was connected to Miki Sayaka, and we can be confident that it’s the same one in the grief-cube-and-demon universe as it was the first time Madoka met her in a witch-universe because what kind of Madoka would leave her friends behind?

A soul’s relationship to the body is a substantial one. A soul’s behavior changes depending on events which the soul’s body has experienced - or, to put it another way, “the soul remembers”. This is one of the primary behaviors associated with a soul. When these memories are faked, they fail to make an impact on the soul (see: Sacnite).

When the soul’s relationship to its body is interrupted by Incubator contracting, the interruption is painful. When the soul is placed in a relationship with a different body, it endeavors to reshape the body to what it is familiar with, as demonstrated in early revivification procedures. When that reshaping is partial or incomplete, the results are unpleasant. When the memories of the host are altered or the host “reformatted”, the soul attempts to bring them back (see the presumed flashbacks of Mami). Note that no reincarnation has been observed in the universe; if it does occur we will need to look for new metaphysics to explain the encapsulation of previous lives.

It is not known what force assigns souls to particular bodies. However, it seems likely that some souls are not suitable for some bodies, because a hypothetical situation in which we placed the soul we call “Sayaka Miki” in the body of a bloodthirsty Viking war-prince doesn’t intuitively make a lot of sense. It is proposed that one immutable property of a soul is a manner in which it constrains relationships to other entities.

Constraint & Afterlife

If concept-space contains an infinitude of entities, many of which are not real, then any action which selects one set of potential events to be Reality over another is fundamentally an exercise of constraint. The known laws of physics are one type of constraint. The force corrupting soul gems when they have not balanced hope and greif is another. Madoka the Law of Cycles is a third. There are probably many.

Human souls attempt to constrain reality. Most simply do so by being connected with a mind in a body, and affecting the universe through that body’s physical interaction, but souls which are able to work Magic can constrain reality according to their likings. The typical use of magic is the trivial use of this power. Akemi Homura’s theatrics while redirecting a particle beam that could have wiped out Europe are a more extreme use [Ch. 4].

Madoka differs from most human souls in that she is able to observe all potential realities - perhaps all entities - while still applying constraints on reality. Other human souls appear to interact with infinitude only once they are dead (e.g. Sayaka). It is not clear that all souls have this opportunity, but it is consistent with notions of a transcendent afterlife. They may also interact with one another.

Note that love is observed to affect souls very powerfully, and as Kirika observed in Oriko Magica chapter 3, “Love is an infinity of limitations.”



Destiny & Contract

We observe that good wishes and Potential come from a very intense emotional state, a girl who really wants something, and the girl gets what she (thinks she) wants, not just what she says. Incubators do not offer advice on wishes, either. In general, the wish-granting itself is a fairly abuse-resistant system. This suggests that the contractee’s soul actually effects the change, not an Incubator, and that its emotion is directly involved, precluding the likes of the Incubators from making their own wishes directly.

We observe that the wish made during the contract and the powers one gets as a result of the contract are thematically similar. This points to a common mechanism. It is proposed that the incubator contract creates a new relationship between the soul and the universe, one which permits the soul to effect one substantial constraint on the universe immediately (and smaller constraints afterwards, especially if they’re similar to a constraint it just practiced).

Incubators have said that the strength of a girl’s potential is related to the karmic destiny that her soul bears; rulers of nations and the like are known to have more. A destiny is a relationship of the soul to potential future events. This destiny is stronger when there is more influence and stronger connections. The incubators’ contract somehow connects the soul to this destiny in order to achieve the contractee’s wish.



There may be reasons besides emotion middle-school girls are particularly suitable for contract. Their destiny is still substantially undecided, but it is just becoming clear. This suggests a v2 TacComp like Clarisse will have difficulty contracting even if she retains her own soul - her destiny is already tied to Ryouko.

Other properties which result in a gender-specific result may exist, but we lack the corner-cases which could nail them down.

The incubators claim to use the contract to reduce entropy. Perhaps the incubators’ technology places an additional entropy-reduction constraint on the contract, one which requires the contractee’s soul to actually apply it to the universe. It seems likely to be at the time of contract, in any event, as it is usually spoken of in the sense of happening instantaneously (”your wish has overcome entropy!”). There may be additional energy related to the grief-harvesting process, but it is clearly less important than the energy from the wish itself (see the events surrounding the unkillable Kreimheld Gretchen).

The contract places an ongoing burden on the soul: grief cubes will be required regularly. It is not clear what the nature of this burden is exactly, but it does not seem to be an ongoing entropy-reduction, because the incubators really don’t seem to care how long an individual magical girl survives.

We see that stealing a magical girl’s powers, as Oriko experiments with, is not possible without death - essentially the soul surrenders its ability to constrain the universe, and it can have no further impact on reality.

Balance & Grief

Souls appear to require some form of balance: hope and despair balance out to zero. Each exercise that places a soul in a relationship with Hope (a wish, magic, or entropy-reduction - which is fundamentally an exercise in hope for the universe) places it in relationship with grief, sufficient to maintain the soul’s balance.

Akemi Homura & Kaname Madoka

Homura interacts with the usual rules in special ways. In particular, she gets to rewind time.

We have noted that “the soul remembers.” Madoka, however, does not remember rewound time. She has undergone substantial trauma, time and again, and it has not meaningfully impacted her in the penultimate timeline (the main timeline of the animated series). She is just an innocent middle-school girl.

Madoka does not remember because those things never happened. Homura’s rewinding of time removed them from Reality and they are no longer in a direct relationship with Madoka’s soul. However, they are in a relationship with Homura’s soul, which distinguishes them from other events that are not real.

Madoka does, however, sorta-dream about these events in episode 1 and there is a moment of static in episode 8. It is proposed that Madoka’s relationship with these events is indirect, through Homura. This indirect relationship could make Homura special in surprising ways. In particular, one notes that Kyubey predicted that Madoka would not be able to interact with the rewritten universe, no longer having a first-class relationship with Reality, but this wasn’t exactly true. Her relationship to Homura serves as a bridge. If Madoka would like to maintain the bridge’s connection and possess metaphysical resonances connecting her influence to more distant parts of spacetime, she may need Homura, and every moment she stays alive in the universe Madoka’s connection to the universe is stronger. This is why she can’t just pick another prophet to do her will.

Homura’s rewinding-time stopped many events from happening, because Madoka kept dying. This means that Madoka’s life or death decided the ability of any event in the future to exist at all. It’s not just 20 years of rewinds: 240 times an ordinary middle school girl’s destiny is achievable by accident of birth, but Kyubey doesn’t chase after every princess like they’re going to fulfill his quota once and for all, and Madoka is clearly unprecedented. Rather, Madoka has the entirety of humanity’s future on her shoulders, and that is what it takes to be a god, or humanity’s doom. Note that this implies Homura was in error when she thought additional rewinds would make Madoka substantially more powerful, and that Kyubey’s theory of Madoka’s potential was slightly imperfect.

Madoka’s enormous soul gem reflects the scope of the constraints which she has placed on the universe.

Open Questions

There are many open questions in this theory and further study is required. Many relate to the dynamics of Balance. Is balance a property intrinsic to the human soul itself, or of the contract? Or perhaps an extrinsic principle has been placed in a relationship with all contracts? Why do magical girls continue to need grief seeds? And why is grief in a grief cube special - why can’t a magical girl cleanse her soul gem by hanging around in a hospital or war zone? Are grief cubes artificial, perhaps of Incubator design like the soul-gems-turned-grief-seed that preceded them? How about the miasma? The incubators may have experience with pocket universes and isolation fields (Rebellion is non-canon here but suggestive). What is the relationship between Homura’s grief and her crazy-powers? If Madoka saves magical girls from despair how does that interact with the balancing principle? What other principles besides Balance constrain relationships in the metaphysical realm?