心火 🎀

Hey anon, thanks for the ask.

Respectfully, I don't know who you're referring to when you say, "you people," so I can't really answer for whoever else you're referring to, but I can answer for myself. I suppose if you wanted the answer to the question for every individual person you're grouping together, you'd have to hunt each one down and ask them individually. That said, these are my thoughts:

I don't necessarily care about Kyouko's dad so much as I care about media literacy, or the apparent lack thereof. It's extremely worrying to me that people who might claim to be able to spot abuse or cult tactics would still fall quite easily for their strategies in media. These people in real life aren't going to present themselves as obvious demons or monsters and their survivors frequently present their traumas with a layer of protective shielding that says that their situations weren't that bad, when in reality, they were. That people so frequently misinterpret fictional displays of abuse without realizing it shows an astounding lack of critical thought that I do think should be considered somewhat concerning. For all the discourse that people generate on this site and others, there's just an incredible lack of actual ability to read the signs.

I also think that it's important that viewers watch and listen to Kyouko's story with some amount of criticism and skepticism because doing so enables a fuller understanding of her story. As I mentioned in my essay, Kyouko Sakura is one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted characters in the story because her story isn't told in a completely straightforward manner. Neither is Sayaka's for that matter, because both of their stories revolve around lying to themselves and how their heroic inclinations and natures conflict with disillusioning things and concepts in the real world. Puella Magi Madoka Magica is one of the most formative pieces of media in my life, and I find it personally important that people who want to claim they consume media conscientiously actually afford PMMM the respect it deserves by reading and watching closely. It's mostly character driven, not plot driven, so it's doubly important to afford characters that sort of attention.

I also find that the way that Pastor Sakura's breakdown is described by fans specifically to be incredibly ableist. Interpreting what happened as a "psychotic break" or an "episode of psychosis" is incredibly, harmfully ableist. It's incredibly thoughtless, inconsiderate, and rude to the vast number of people who experience psychosis and don't do violent things. You may or may not have noticed it, but I also don't describe Pastor Sakura as "narcissistic," because that's harmful to narcissistic people and people with personality disorders who, again, don't do the harmful things that Pastor Sakura did in the show and in A Different Story (canon spin off manga).

Finally, I'm personally offended by the Pastor Sakura defenses because I did escape somewhat of a Christian cult. It's somewhat insulting and discouraging for me to see the way people just completely miss these kinds of signs because of what I had to go through. It's irritating. But hey, that's their problem, and it's also not the reason I wrote my essay. It's just a factor in why I find Pastor Sakura to be an interesting character.

As a more positive aside, I consume media analytically and can't help but think about things and examine angles as I consume it, so I just enjoy analyzing media. I got my degree in English Creative Writing and Animation, after all, so this kind of thing comes naturally to me.