Careful, I'm talking about the series AND Rebellion so don't read me if you haven't seen everything.
I think she is just like the other characters : a good but flawed person, who genuily tries to do the right thing but does it wrong, doesn't manage to put herself in others' shoes, and is so emotionally and mentally damaged that she ends up doing something that can be comsidered "evil" without her actually being evil.
I'll expend a bit on all that. As I said I do believe that she is a good person at heart. Not only because of her love for Madoka but also because of the way she behaves around the other characters. She deeply cares about Kyoko, that's something she shows in almost every timeline. She also cares a lot about Mami, in Rebellion it even turns out that the reason she never tells her the truth isn't because she doesn't trust her after Timeline III's incident, but because she is afraid of hurting her.
At the end of the series, she is also shown to be very gentle and sweet around Tatsuya. The only person she seems to genuily despise is Sayaka and that's for understanble reasons : Sayaka has always been antagonizing her even back when Homura was shy and innocent, and furthermore, from Homura's point of view Sayaka is being toxic to Madoka, and she's not wrong for feeling that way, Sayaka herself acknowledged she hurt her (don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those who put all the blame on Sayaka, I love her).
So overall Homura is a kind person who simply got too attached to the first person to ever show kindness to her. She's not some psycho, she truly cares about Madoka in a pure form of love and she also cares a lot about the other characters. She puts a tough front in order to achieve her goal but she actually hates herself for hurting them (I'm not making things up, she practically states it herself in Rebellion). She's trying to protect them and to do so, she ended up having no choice but to be cold and harsh.
That said, Homura having a good heart doesn't at all mean she did nothing wrong. She is human, and humans make mistakes. And she made so many mistakes because she is so human.
Let's not forget that she is psychologically fragile from the beginning : she was even shown having suicidal thoughts in Timeline 0. What I mean is that she's not a mentally healthy person, she is unstable, insecure, and those aspects of her psychology explain why her attachment towards Madoka so quickly turns into obsession. That's a typicial behaviour from fragile and isolated people like her, to become dangerously attached to the first person to offer them some form of comfort. And yes, it is dangerous. Homura's obsession towards Madoka leads her to practically control her, which is very unhealthy. Furthermore, she is incapable of moving on. Where """normal""" people would grieve and then try to move on from a friend's passing, Homura completely rejected this reality, and has never, ever been able to go pass that, it even worsened with each timeline and it makes perfect sense : saving Madoka has become her one and only reason to live.
But what it means is that she is completely attaching herself to her, instead of letting her lead the life she wants to have with the consequences that have to come (as tragic as they are), she entirely controls not just her but also those around her (while she isn't wrong for thinking Sayaka is hurting Madoka, trying to separate them isn't okay at all). Madoka is fine with sacrificing herself for people she loves, but Homura cannot accept it which is actually selfish. It's not an healthy way to love her. And this is what led to what happened in Rebellion.
Homura is very fragile, drowning in self-hatred, seeing Madoka as an angel and her only source of light... And it comes to a point where she cherishes a version of Madoka she created rather than the real one. She ends up putting those thoughts on Madoka, completely misinterpreting her words, making her view the situation completely differently from all it really is... And this mixture of denial, control, fragility, and everything else, are what led to her ripping Madoka from Heaven. Dhe came to a point where she understood she was wrong, but simply is too broken to care anymore. All she wants is for Madoka to be safe, even if that means betraying Madoka herself by going against her own ideals and desires.
(And I'm just talking about the mistakes regarding Madoka because these are the biggest one, but she made many more throughout the show.)
So to summarize, Homura is kind-hearted, she did a lot of things right and she is shown to be truly gentle and soft on the inside, simply having no choice but to be harsh in order to do what she thinks is right.
But she is also very mentally fragile, with a lot of mental issues, and this mixed with basic human flaws made for someone unstable who does many things wrong while being convinced she is in the right, until she becomes completely broken.
Homura is a good person, but a very, very complex one. |