Note: This post contains spoilers for the series Puella Magi Madoka Magica. If you haven't seen the series and care about being spoiled, it's probably better to skip this.
This post is dedicated to my friend LT, a passionate Mami-supporter.
In my previous entry, I talked about some reactions to Puella Magi Madoka Magica that described the characterization of the cast as, to put it politely, lacking in depth. I've seen the term "moeblob" bandied-about, which is at its heart a description of characters who lack personalities beyond what's required to provoke a reaction of "moe" in their audience. While this is a term I'd usually reserve for series that have no other purpose than to present cute characters to an otaku audience (unlike Madoka which actually has a fairly rich story to tell), I don't completely disagree with the term's use in this case - the characters in this series really aren't what I would call fully fleshed-out. That, however, doesn't mean that they lack stories worth telling.
Tomoe Mami is a character known primarily for having been killed three episodes into the anime's broadcast. While her death marked a startling turning point in the series, as a character she wasn't around long enough for the event to have the same kind of emotional weight as some of the events which occur in later episodes. She's become the target of a lot of posthumous speculation, and there have been theories that speculate that she was somehow working in conjunction with Kyubey to help entice innocent girls into becoming contract labor for his energy machine. Her death became a meme and her character remained a mystery. She's easy to overlook in lieu of characters who had more screen time and yet, like the other girls in Madoka, her existence serves as a strong symbol of something much bigger than the struggles of one character in one anime.
I didn't like Mami at first. I briefly bought into the theory that she was Kyubey's puppet, a strong, seemingly-happy
magical girl with deceptive grace and kindness which she used to entice other young girls into the Incubators' power-extraction scheme. It wasn't until a friend of mine revealed to me (after blazing through the entire series over a couple of evenings), that Mami was her favorite character, that I began to consider alternate possibilities. Then it hit me; watching Mami's experience was like looking into a mirror and seeing my own face as it looked years ago. Not literally, of course, but what struck me so forcefully was Mami's apparent self-assuredness about the way that the world worked and her place within it, which is definitely a youthful foible that I shared. In her first appearance, she swoops in with a smile on her face to defend Sayaka and Madoka, the firing of her muskets like a mid-air ballet. She takes the two younger girls under her wing, teaching them all they need to know to be magical girls. Of course, her confidence is born of naiveté, as she's the only magical girl within the show's main timeline who isn't forced to face the entire truth about her eventual fate and doesn't succumb to the same slow deterioration of her brethren.
Watching the show's third episode again, especially being privy to alternate-timeline-Mami's anguished mental breakdown in episode ten, lends a new perspective on some of the briefly-glimpsed tragic aspects of her character. What I found most memorable was her advocacy of informed choice; she emphasizes to Madoka that her wish should be well-chosen and something that she actually wants for herself. As we learn, Mami had very little choice in her own wish - her options were to contract with Kyubey, 
or die a painful death - and it's this aspect of her character that sheds some more light on her purpose within the narrative. I see Mami in sort of a motherhood role, guiding her young magical girl friends with the hand of experience and the stern love of maturity. Just like our mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers did their best while hoping for a better future for their daughters, Mami bids Madoka to consider herself and relish the fact that her wish will be the product of her own desire, unlike hers which was the product of desperation and necessity.
Unfortunately, as with real life, the price of daring to be too optimistic, too confident, or too blind to reality is to be punished by having to stare into the gaping maw of the world's harshness. Mami grows overconfident, bolstered by the joy she feels at finally having someone near her to quell her loneliness, and her giddiness ends up killing her. Hers is a sudden loss of innocence coupled with the bitter realization that some things are still unconquerable. For those of us who have ever dared to try and demand respect from a culture that seems so focused on apologia for its own hatred, Mami's story is all-too-relatable. The minute she advocates for her friend's agency (and seems wishful for the return of her own), she's punished in the most graphic manner possible.
Part of me has grown to love Mami because she represents something simple, perhaps a more innocent time in my own life. She looked into Kyubey's eyes and wished only to live, and while she seems to have her own set of regrets about this choice, her exuberance while fighting her opponents demonstrates that, in some way, she's thankful for the life that she has. Another part of me has grown to admire her for daring to hope for an end to her loneliness, because so often we're told that to want for ourselves or wish on our own behalf is to suffer from weakness and greed. And I feel a certain kinship with Mami; her reaction to learning the inevitable truth of her existence as a magical girl is
one of extreme horror and grief, just as coming to terms with the fact that the world isn't quite the idealized place I once thought it could be has caused me a great deal of sadness.
Just as Mami's death becomes one of the first seeds of Madoka's own wish, so does the sadness of reality beget determination to change things for the better, and that's perhaps the most valuable lesson that her experience can teach us. It doesn't really surprise me that Mami isn't a popular character, because her appearance is fleeting and her richness as a person is ultimately symbolic and based more on one's personal interpretation of the series' prominent themes. To be honest, though, what intrigues me most about her is that her existence, however obliquely, reinforces the idea that women should have choices, and that to be punished for wanting something better for oneself and one's friends is truly unjust. While I may get my head chewed-off (figuratively, of course) for speaking up about certain aspects of anime and other media that are harmful to myself and others, I like to think that I can emulate Mami and remain graceful while fighting my battles, be thankful for my friendships, and be happy to live my life, even though I've already learned a great deal about its disappointing truths. Sometimes our greatest successes are the seeds of inspiration we plant in those around us.
Next time, I'll be writing about Sakura Kyoko. Please look forward to it!
Hmm... I've only watched the series once, and only just re-watched her death scene now, so I'm probably in no position to talk, but I wonder if it's jumping to a conclusion to say that she's being "punished" for advocating agency. My interpretation was just that it was just chance that that was the battle that took her life.
I think you're mixing-up author intent (which I don't give two craps about) with my interpretation of the text, which is always going to be subjective based on my own experiences. I have enough evidence for my interpretation, but I'm sure Shinbo and Urobochi didn't intend it (at least not exactly) when they created/wrote the show.
I found an interesting blog post about the "queering" of literature that might help illustrate this point a bit, but the gist is that most literature wasn't written with queer (or by the same extension, feminist) intentions in mind, but that doesn't prevent oppressed people from finding that meaning in the texts, nor should such interpretations be faulted as "wrong" simply because the author didn't mean it that way. Textual analysis was my bread-and-butter while I was still in school, so I definitely subscribe to this theory :)
There is But One Step from the Grotesque to the Horrible
Thank you for this, it was lovely.