the characterization of makima from all sides of the fandom is very incorrect and downright infuriating as someone with a deep love for makima.
i genuinely don’t care about the dudebros who call her mommy, not because it’s correct or not egregious, but because they’re few and far between if you’re not engaging with stupid men. what is more frustrating to me is people that call her a sexual predator or pedophile.
she dangled denji’s desires in front of him to manipulate him. she was never going to have any sexual relations with him, and her manipulation + grooming were never sexual. she is incapable of that sort of attraction.
i also dislike the people that characterize her as some wacky cartoonishly evil sadist when her sadism is no more than that of any devil. she does not enjoy killing, she enjoys control. her laughing after killing power was her experiencing the joy of her power, true control, and being swallowed by that ecstasy.
people seem to forget that her life is not dissimilar to reze’s. she was also a child once, and she had always been kept “collared and controlled” by the state. she views people as tools due to the combination of her natural desire for control and also because she has always been a tool with a gun to her head. she never knew equal relationships, all she knew was the government and its destruction.
her treatment of denji, including destruction of his family and security, was for the purpose of drawing out chainsaw man and having him eat the other horsemen and all of the other dangerous devils.
she did get some level of satisfaction in these things, her instincts as the control devil make that immovable, but she also got satisfaction due to her jealousy. seeing denji get a family and withhold equal relationships despite the danger of his hybrid aspect, she feels satisfied that she gets to rip that away and watch him turn empty and motionless, just like herself.
her reasoning for wanting to kill other devils is control is something that is feared due to what it brings. war, famine, death, etc. are all the reasons people feel fear towards control. makima desperately wants equal relationships, a family, to feel the simple joys that people do.
she believes her actions are a necessary evil to ultimately end human suffering. she believes this because her life is government control, and the only way she knows how to achieve this goal is the same techniques used by the corrupt and abusive government. she doesn’t care what it takes because she doesn’t know how, people are pawns to her because that is how her superiors treat humans and makima herself.
despite part of her goal being to “free” mankind of their pain, it is truthfully more selfish than that. you see it too when she cries in the movie theater while two characters hug. she would give anything for a chance at a family, a chance at equality without feeling above others. how can a devil feel above others if she has no leverage to hold? maybe then, and only then, could she be free of her chains.
the overarching theme of chainsaw man is government corruption. makima is a product of that, a victim of the cruelty instilled since she was born. she is the tragic example of what a system turns blank slates into. her stone had been carved for years, and there was no way for her to erase that. this is all she knows, and as such she had to be erased to form a new beginning in the form of nayuta.
