Work Text:
Introduction
Who or what is Walpurgisnacht? Beginning with her ominous introduction in the first episode of Puella Magi Madoka Magica (PMMM), the being later revealed to be the Stage-Producing Witch remains a pivotal figure through the final episode. She also remains a mystery, with her true name and presumably tragic backstory yet to be revealed. Although she does not appear in the sequel movie, Rebellion, the April 2021 announcement of a follow-up movie, Walpurgis no Kaiten ("Turning the Tide of Walpurgisnacht"; "Walpurgisnacht: Rising" in the official English translation) suggests that her story is not yet complete.
In this essay, I will explore one theory about Walpurgisnacht's origins centered around her unique relationship with Homura Akemi, as well as several possible alternatives and their implications. As such, the argument that follows contains heavy spoilers for both the main series and the Rebellion movie, and assumes readers have basic knowledge of both the plot and characters. My hope is to inspire further speculation and suggest potential narratives with strong fanfic potential--though whether these stories will be canon-compliant or canon-divergent AUs has yet to be determined.
Twists and Turns
PMMM is a series defined by its shocking revelations, beginning with Mami's death at the end of the third episode, and continuing with Sayaka's transformation into a witch, and Homura's mission to save Madoka through a series of time loops. Though each new reveal calls everything the viewers think they know thus far into question, each of these twists are heavily foreshadowed in advance. Thus, I suspect Walpurgisnacht's origins will follow the same pattern, with hints scattered throughout canon thus far.
In a similar vein, the original PMMM anime also establishes a pattern of characters initially confronting their opposites, only to subsequently become them. Following their contract with Kyubey, magical girls must fight witches, all of whom were once magical girls, until they become witches themselves. This also occurs on a more subtle level between characters, especially Madoka and Homura, who repeatedly reverse their respective roles on multiple occasions.
Finally, although magical girls lose their original identity upon their transformation into a witch, certain elements of their former lives remain within their labyrinths, symbolizing the psychological struggles that led to their downfall. Sayaka's love of music is reflected in her witch's orchestral motif; Charlotte, the desert-themed witch that devours Mami, was once a girl who wished for a cake for her dying mother. This suggests that it is possible to predict certain elements of Walpurgisnacht's original identity from her current appearance, and use them to construct a profile of the girl she once was.
These three points taken together lead me to suspect that Homura Akemi is the magical girl at the core of Walpurgisnacht. What twist could possibly be more shocking to her or the audience than the knowledge that from the very beginning, her greatest enemy has always been within?
Not Like Other Witches
Walpurgisnacht is an exception to many of the established rules regarding witches. Instead of luring her victims into a hidden labyrinth, she projects her labyrinth upon the world itself to transform it into a story of her own devising. In contrast to both witches and magical girls, whose magical costumes, worlds, and effects disappear upon their defeat or death, thus returning the world to "normal", the damage caused by Walpurgisnacht remains even after the witch herself is gone.
While Walpurgisnacht was originally born from the soul of a single magical girl, according to writer Gen Urobuchi, she is able to combine with other witches "in the same way two powerful tornadoes are able to combine and become larger" [1]. The comparison to a storm is especially apt, as Walpurgisnacht appears as an exceptionally powerful supercell on radar scans even to unmagical eyes. She also possesses the ability to appear seemingly out of nowhere; her incursions into the normal world appear to be both rare and unpredictable, though she always attacks the city of Mitakihara in every timeline Homura experiences.
Unlike other witches, who drop grief seeds upon their defeat, Walpurgisnacht's grief seed is never shown or mentioned in the original series--not even during a pivotal scene in Episode 10 where a lack of grief seeds forces Homura to mercy-kill a wounded Madoka, traumatizing her even further. The grief seed does appear in certain routes of the PMMM portable game [2], which raises the question of why Homura never encounters it in the main series. While there are potentially many reasons for its absence, it makes me wonder if Walpurgisnacht was ever truly defeated in the first place. If that's the case, it's entirely possible Walpurgisnacht used her considerable powers to retreat elsewhere--perhaps into a different time or alternate dimension, just as Homura herself does.
Inverse and Opposite
Just as Homura and Madoka are repeatedly paired and contrasted with each other throughout the series, so are Walpurgisnacht and Kriemhild Gretchen, Madoka's witch form. The "Prologue in Heaven" sequence at the beginning of Episode One appears to depict Walpurgisnacht's mandala together with Gretchen's distinct silhouette. The framing strongly suggests that the series is a larger story being told to/by Walpurgisnacht herself--but if so, why?
We see very little of Kriemhild Gretchen in the anime, but in at least one timeline she appears to be a giant shadowy version of Madoka bearing a remarkable resemblance to the Brocken specter, a type of optical illusion that amplifies and distorts shadows so that they appear much larger than they truly are. The Brocken specter is named after a German mountain that serves as the location of Walpurgisnacht celebration in Goethe's Faust (a major influence on the series as a whole). Even more interesting is the fact that Brocken specters are often accompanied by a series of concentric rainbows known as a glory, which appear very similar to Walpurgisnacht's mandala.
In addition, lead designer Inu Curry deliberately designed these two witches as a pair [3]. More specifically, "Walpurgisnacht is meant to look like the upper half of a sand timer, while Kriemhild Gretchen looks like the lower half" [4]. This is an especially interesting description, given that Urobuchi specifically describes Homura's shield as a "sand timer" in an interview [5].
Given the series' established pattern of meaningful contrasts, the constant juxtaposition of Kriemhild Gretchen and Walpurgisnacht makes me wonder if the two are somehow linked. Given the strong connections between Madoka and Homura, who else would Madoka's witch be linked to but Homura's? Perhaps the reason why Walpurgisnacht always comes to Mitakihara is that like Homura, she is drawn to Madoka's presence.
Self and Other
Likewise, there are many parallels between Walpurgisnacht and Homura herself. The most obvious are the witch's clock and cog motifs, which mirror the gears on Homura's (round) shield and her powers over time. There are also the mysterious skeletal trees that Walpurgisnacht summons in several timelines, which resemble a series of branching timelines; Homura is often shown in or besides a similar grove of barren trees surrounded by floodwaters in the ruins of Mitakihara after these battles. A similar tree later appears in Rebellion in roughly the same location by the river, adjacent to the glass dome where Homura meets with Kyouko; later in the film, another skeletal tree emerging from Homura's neck in lieu of her head bursts into blossom thanks to Madoka's love. Another leafless tree appears in the final pages of the Rebellion manga as Homura contemplates her new world.
While such similarities could be a red herring to mislead fans down the wrong track, there are also more subtle parallels. Walpurgisnacht is missing her eyes and cannot see, just as Homura is metaphorically blinded by her obsessions. Walpurgisnacht's witch card describes her nature as "helpless" and calls her "the fool that spins in a circle" [6], two descriptions that could just as easily apply to Homura's low self-esteem, her refusal to give up, and the circular nature of the loops she endures.
Over the course of the series, Homura becomes obsessed with defeating Walpurgisnacht, repeatedly insisting to Madoka she can defeat the witch by herself. (In certain routes of the PSP game, Homura succeeds in defeating Walpurgisnacht alone, but dies immediately afterwards; this is not compatible with the anime, which depends on Homura's continuing survival n order to continue the loops.) But despite her repeated attempts, Homura cannot win, thus setting the stage (so to speak) for Madoka to make her wish at the beginning of episode 12.
What if the reason Homura could never win isn't a lack of will or firepower? What if it's because she's been fighting herself the entire time--literally as well as metaphorically? From this perspective, Homura's pyrrhic victory over Walpurgisnacht in the PSP game makes perfect sense on a symbolic level--she cannot survive Walpurgisnacht's death, because she is also Walpurgisnacht, and her battle is thus a kind of suicide, another recurring theme in Rebellion. However, Homura survives Walpurgisnacht's defeat in the anime because both she and Walpurgisnacht are saved/purified by Madoka's love.
What About Homulily?
Of course, an obvious objection to the Homura-as-Walpurgisnacht theory is that Homura already has a canon witch form--Homulily, who appears in both the Rebellion movie and several routes of the PSP game. Homura can't possibly be both Homulily and Walpurgisnacht, can she?
Well, actually, she could. Witch forms appear to be at least somewhat variable, with Sayaka's witch taking a subtly different form across timelines in the main series. Depending on which route the player takes in the PSP game, Homulily can appear as either "the Nutcracker Witch" or "the Witch of the Mortal World", so it's possible that Walpurgisnacht is yet another variation. It's also likely that Walpurgisnacht, as a conglomerate of many different witches, now looks different from her original form.
Like Walpurgisnacht, Homulily is missing the top half of her head, and wears an elaborate fancy dress. Unlike other witches, which feed on the despair of their victims, Homulily is nurtured by her own despair (hence her nature being one of "self-sufficiency"), making her as exceptional as Walpurgisnacht in her own way. Her introduction in Rebellion parallels Walpurgisnacht's in the original series, right down to the same stylized "countdown" and a lacy curtain rise (blue in the original series, pink in Rebellion). The fake Mitakihara Homura creates is filled with theater and film references, and regularly breaks the fourth wall with background signs like "Are you enjoying the movie?" which perfectly complement Walpurgisnacht's goal (as state on her official witch card) to "completely change the whole of this age into a drama" [6]. By the end of the film, Homura has gone one step further and projected her vision onto the entire universe.
In a booklet released with the Rebellion Blu-Ray, Homulily's minions the Clara dolls "play the role of mourners", with the description for the final doll Ai (or Love) noting that they are "the theater troupe of this mortal world" [7]. The twelfth doll, Manuke (Stupidity) is constantly telling stories about the Goddess (presumably Madoka), and the fourteenth doll, Ganko (Stubbornness) notes "The abyss of this mortal world is our stage." The overlap between this and Walpurgisnacht's own theater motifs could not be more apparent. The primary difference is that Homulily and the Clara dolls are in mourning over a tragedy, while Walpurgisnacht appears to be celebrating, with her circus (farce?) motif.
It's also notable that Walpurgisnacht's theme in the original series--"Nux Walpurgis"--literally translates to "Walpurgis's nut" (or, as I jokingly refer to it, "WalpurgisNut"). This was initially confusing to many fans, who wondered if it was a typo for "nox" (night), but makes a lot more sense after seeing Homulily the Nutcracker witch and the striking shot of a mouth closing in on a walnut in Rebellion.
Homura is appalled and furious when she becomes a witch in Rebellion, believing it to be a betrayal of Madoka. Imagine her reaction to discovering that she is Walpurgisnacht! Mmm, angst. And just because something similar happen in Rebellion doesn't take it off the table--after all, this is a series that thrives on repetition, repeats, and revisiting the same sequences over and over again. And given her reality-bending powers at the end of Rebellion, would it really be so farfetched for her to transform into a being that wrecks havoc on reality itself?
A Few Alternatives
But what if all this is just a bunch of coincidences, and Walpurgisnacht is a completely different entity from Homura? How might this strange composite witch come about? Here are a few possible theories:
1) Corrupted Law of Cycles
As a conglomeration of witches, Walpurgisnacht directly parallels the Law of Cycles--a similar collection of magical girls (albeit with a more benign objective) created by Madoka's wish to erase witches from existence. Just as Madoka-as-the-Law of Cycles uses Sayaka and Nagisa to carry out her plans, Walpurgisnacht's familiars take the silhouetted outlines of magical girls who have presumably been "taken" by the witch.
At the end of Rebellion Homura forcibly separates Madoka from the Law of Cycles, which continues to exist and perform its usual functions independent of Madoka's guidance. Thus, it is entirely possible that Walpurgisnacht is a "corrupted" form of the Law of Cycles with a twisted form of its original objective--to save all magical girls--by absorbing them completely.
(Alternately, if it's possible to separate Madoka from the Law of Cycles, what happens if Homura is separated from her "devil" persona...?)
2) Walpurgisnacht is another Homura
This one is purely speculative, but hear me out: in all her loops, Homura never encounters another version of herself. What if there was another version of Homura out there, one who made a similar wish to be a time traveler and fell into despair and eventually became Walpurgisnacht?
Admittedly, this is a crack theory without much canon support, but it's worth noting that the concept of multiple Homura interacting with each other is the premise of the non-canonical Puella Magi Homura Tamura ~Parallel Worlds Do Not Remain Parallel Forever~ spin-off manga. While Tamura plays the encounter of so many Homuras for laughs, it would be fascinating to see a darker twist.
3) Walpurgisnacht's Core is Someone Else
If neither Homura nor the Law of Cycles forms the core of Walpurgisnact, what about some other character instead? Because Walpurgisnacht's original identity has been so shrouded in secrecy, it's hard for me to imagine the creators publicly releasing it in any form before the movie comes out, but hiding the truth in plain sight is certainly well within their capacities--as is deliberate misdirection.
One possible candidate is Mabayu Aki, who was introduced a key character in the mysterious Scene 0 spinoff, which was announced simultaneously with Walpurgis no Kaiten in April 2021. Armed with golden film shears, a film-edged dress and a cap shaped like a zoetrope, Mabayu's film motif is well in keeping with Walpurgisnacht's obsession with storytelling. Given the momentary black "gap" that appears in Episode 10 between Madoka's murder of Mami and Homura's mercy-kill--suggesting a "cut" in film--it's entirely possible there is more to the story than we the audience are aware of, and we will see that scene once again--with a twist. The name "Scene 0" itself is suggestive of an origin story, or a circular loop, where the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning, which parallels Walpurgisnacht's appearances at the beginning and end of the main series.
Fans have also speculated about the possible connections between Walpurgisnacht and a cog-themed magical girl briefly shown in the 2021 re-draw of the original PMMM series manga by Hanokage (which came out a few months after the announcement of Walpurgis no Kaiten), with arguments both for and against [8, 9]. If this character is intended to be Walpurgisnacht, it is likely a relatively recent development, as she is not included in either the anime and the original manga versions of this scene. Given SHAFT's tendency to update their animation over time, resulting in marked differences between the original TV broadcast, the Blu-Ray release, and the first two movies, it's notable that they have not (yet?) incorporated this particular change, but perhaps they will do so in subsequent editions if this is truly a retcon.
However, if a character other than Homura is Walpurgisnacht's core, future narratives must explain who they are and why their story is relevant to the established characters, similar to the way Nagisa in Rebellion was eventually revealed to be the magical girl form of Charlotte from the original series. It's possible that this could happen in Scene 0, the Magia Record gacha game, or in the Walpurgis no Kaiten movie itself. If Homura is the core of Walpurgisnacht, none of this will be necessary, as the audience is already intimately familiar with the character and her struggles.
Conclusion
Homura has always been a pivotal and important character within PMMM, and what the audience believes they know about her changes constantly throughout the original series and the Rebellion movie. Thus far, we've seen Homura go from ordinary girl to magical girl to jaded veteran to witch to "devil". Have her transformations reached their end with her self-proclaimed apotheosis or is there another state for her to reach as she once again proves herself to be an exception to the rules? Thematically, becoming her own enemy would allow her story to come full circle--and thus potentially allow it to come to an end at last.
That said, as of this writing there is no concrete evidence for Walpurgisnacht's identity one way or the other; all of this is merely speculation. While it's possible that the parallels and observations listed above are red herrings with no connection to each other, I would expect a series as well-crafted and semiotically dense as PMMM to lay the groundwork for such a big reveal early on. However, it may be that I lack sufficient context to see the full pattern just yet.
Only time will tell if this essay is prescient glimpse of Walpurgisnacht's true origins or a misguided historical relic. However, all of the possibilities I have outlined here are fascinating, and I would enjoy seeing them explored in more detail in both canon and fanfic. Regardless of the answer, I look forward to the day we learn the true story--if only because that means the new movie will finally be out!
Suggestions for Further Reading
-The Walpurgisnacht Arc by Phoebe_Zeitgeist
-And We All Fall Down by Shadowblight
-Strange Loop by atamascolily
-Absentia by atamascolily