#theme breakdown

Christophe Beck and Michael Paraskevas breakdown Agatha Harkness’s theme music on Agatha All Along.

source: instagram

Beck: All the statements of Agatha’s theme have been leading up to this moment.

Parakskevas: This is what she came for. It was Agatha… All Along.

Beck: The main part is all over one chord and is pretty simple descending feeling and that gives it a slightly ancient eternal quality.

Paraskevas: The other thing with Agatha’s theme we carried over from her theme from WandaVision was this detuned alto flute, that we pitched down an octave. That also adds a sense of mystery, and darkness, and heartbreak.

Another presentation of Agatha’s theme was in her association with Nicky we used this detuned piano.

Beck: It has a watery quality to it. It really sounds like distant memory.

Paraskevas: In Episode 8, Agatha finally gets her power back. And we got epic, soaring strings. Episode 9, we really lean into the witchiness of Agatha and have all this really cool evocative vocal textures. Wanna try and sing it?

Beck: Absolutely not. Point your ears towards the high-plucked, dulcimer-like sound you’ll hear it’s actually outlining the whole theme.

But I just love breaking the songs down 💙

Its no secret that 99% of magic power in young adult fiction symbolize maturing. Its a nature path to take when you have a protagonist whose young by necessity to appease the audience and receives powers out of no where again by necessity so the audience can learn along side them. However, while most magical girl shows use this metaphor, Madoka Magica elevates itself by not only focusing on growing up but also focusing on the parents who have to go on their own unique journey of needing to let go but often failing to do so. 

Now obviously this applies to Madoka’s own mother in one of my favorite scenes of the show where she attempts to stop Madoka from leaving the shelter during the Walpurgisnacht attack. She eventually lets Madoka pursue her goal based only on her trust in her and the moment is over in a flash. While she doesn’t know it, she’s allowing Madoka to go off and make her contract with Kyube to become a magical girl, gaining magical powers and metaphorically transitioning into adulthood. She’s letting her child grow up and make decisions on her own. Thematically you couldn’t read much into this if it was an isolated incident, but it is anything but that.

While Madoka only has one actual overprotective mother she also has a similar entity in her life who is even more overbearing: Homura. I find it interesting how she doesn’t attempt to tell Madoka about the fate of magical girls and also tries to take care of Kyube before it could reach her. She doesn’t want to expose Madoka to the harmful reality of magical girls even if it means she’s less convincing. While done to protect her what it actually does is take away her right to choose her fate as Madoka reveals when she finally declares “This is what I really want” to Homura as she’s about to make her wish. In this conversation, Homura says “If you do, everything I fought for will be for nothing” to which Madoka responds “I’m so sorry, you’ve been protecting me for a long time and I’ll never forget that. I know you’re the reason I’m the person I am today.” Now if that doesn’t sound like something a daughter would tell her mother I don’t know what does! If we look at the metaphor of magical girls representing maturing into adulthood this makes even more sense. Homura as a magical girl herself has already matured and thus servers perfectly as the paternal figure. She is attempt to stop Madoka from becoming a Magical Girl (growing up) and goes to great lengths to protect her from the horrors of the world. 

It doesn’t just stop there. This theme ties perfectly into Sayaka and Kyoko’s warning about not making a wish for some else because there is no way to know that person will want that wish. In a way, Homura’s wish was the same as both of there’s was. Indeed the show is making it pretty clear that the cause of overprotective parents is them believing they know what’s best for their kids and “wishing” for them to be sheltered from all the pain in the world. 

But there is one final and emotional resolution to all of this: Homura’s efforts weren’t meaningless at all, were they? She single handedly fostered the powerful Karmic Destiny that Madoka eventually used to cure all magical girls of their eventual despair. The anime isn’t saying that parenthood is bad or worthless. Its saying that if you are a good parent you will be rewarded for taking a leap of faith and letting your child go on their own. If you harbored their potential well enough then when you finally let them free they will do magical things! 

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