Talk:Witch

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So, it seems like the page for the TV anime got a major redesign, and Witch cards are no longer included. Obviously, I think we should keep the official ones, but does that mean we can finally retire the fanmade ones? EPF (talk) 17:19, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Nevermind, they moved the old page to an archive, but my question about retiring the fanon cards for Witches past the 2011 anime still stands. EPF (talk) 17:22, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Reason why we create and used fanmade cards for witches are more for organization purposes and consistency, but I see your point. Especially since the MagiReco game and anime did away with the card format for a different one, who knows if they'll bring the old one back. Would the alternative be to just use the official art alone then? I got small collection of all the official witch art (as transparent pngs) I could find on my profile. -The Witch's House (talk) 08:11, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, it's being done for consistency. However, given how small the official Witch cards are (278x385), that means our main source of info about a Witch is often paired with the tiniest image of her in existence. I thought of either making the Witch card a template (a'la Wikipedia's Superimpose or Superimpose2, just specialized), using the *actual* cards whenever possible (see File:SOM_data.PNG and File:FPfkQ1HaIAIbw5_.jpg), and just plain PNGs when there are no cards. But my favorite option is just going away with cards for displaying the Witch name and lore completely, and simply using the best image of the Witch we can find and if a card exists, just placing it in a gallery below. That would require fundamentally changing Template:Card though, so that the JP lore is displayed differently. EPF (talk) 09:19, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

If people like the card format, we could just use a blank card for all witches (as a background image, or similar to what we already do with the cards to overlay the Japanese text), and add the actual witch image on top. That means no fanmade card images are required, though in some cases the images might need to be specially cropped or altered to fit into the space on the card. But personally, I don't think we absolutely need to stick to the card format. ~ Celtic Minstrel (talk) 14:14, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Names

Did Pax Romana or Mirage of Alexandria ever establish a reading in Roman letters for the names stated here? (That is, "monster of myth" and "evil god".) Because, without that, I don't think we can make any hard claim as to what witches were called in Rome and Alexandria. After all, the people of Rome and Alexandria didn't speak Japanese. ~ Celtic Minstrel (talk) 14:28, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Nope, no romanized terms were used. MUT TL. It's true the people from those locations are not *directly* using the Japanese terms (hell, even Tsuyu/Chizuru/Toyo might not use the same terms, that's several centuries of gap) and it's directly said that all the modern-era Magical Girls that travelled there during the events of Puella Historia events got an automatic translation system via an Uwasa, but at the same time - it's the closest we're ever going to get, there's no way in hell they'll release a new PMMM spinoff written entirely in Ancient Egyptian or Latin as its original language; hell, they most likely won't ever release even a modern English one, it's a Japanese series. But it is said pretty much that "this is a term we, people from other historical eras, use", even if we perceive those stories through a lens of an in-universe translation, and then most of us here through another lens of real-life translation. EPF (talk) 16:32, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

I suspect the section may be missing another axis of the situation, though I'm not sure if there's any evidence to support it (but I surely must have gotten the idea from somewhere?). I suspect that Kyuubey himself nearly always uses terms equivalent to "witch" and "familiar", with emphasis on "witch" being equivalent to "magical woman"; while all other terms mentioned here are made up by humans (not magical girls) to describe the invisible entities that threaten them. However, in situations like the Tokime where humans attempt to draw Kyuubey's attention to a potential magical girl, Kyuubey will use the local terminology to speed things along. (Similarly, the name he uses for himself is always a clipping of a local word for "incubator" – so in French it becomes "Cube", and in Japanese it becomes "Kyuubey", and in other languages… we have no strong evidence as far as I'm aware.) ~ Celtic Minstrel (talk) 20:18, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

What other information is needed to complete the page?

I think the witch page is pretty important so I want to know what other information we would need to add so I could complete it. I can only think of: The information from Magia Record about the Hydrogen Line, the information from Kazumi about Witch Hybrids, general information about Witches like... idk. Is there something else? Sweet Beanie (talk) 19:53, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps a list? Or at the very least a link to the category. EPF (talk) 19:58, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Lists

This is excessive and also wrong. "Madoka Kaname as Kriemhild Gretchen"? The title says "list of witches with known magical girls" but you guys have written a "list of magical girls who have known witch forms". The definition of "known" is also being stretched here, for example in how Cecil, Virginia, and Stacy are listed as "known" even though their magical girl form is never seen. But ultimately, even if all that is fixed, I don't think this information is something worth putting on this page. Most of it can be derived from the category pages anyway, so in its current form it's just clutter. ~ Celtic Minstrel (talk) 20:40, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Ahh shoot my bad, I thought people won't bother looking at categories so I thought it might be a good way to show a list of Witches in their order of appearances- RaviaVee (talk) 16:55, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Cecil, Virginia and Stacy all have known Magical Girl forms. They are all seen in the afterword for Oriko Magica volume 1. I also don't really see the point of it, but I didn't want to remove it in case someone else had some specific plan. Amaterasu (talk) 18:09, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

A single doodle of what the girl may have looked like hardly qualifies as a "known magical girl form". It's really no better than speculation, even though it has slightly greater force due to coming from the original author. But aside from the clutter aspect, my main issue was that if it's a "list of witches with known magical girls" then it should be phrased like "Kriemhild Gretchen from Madoka Kaname" – placing the emphasis on the witch, not the magical girl. So, if you think it's somehow worth keeping despite the categories, please fix it up into that format. I still think it's just clutter, but maybe I could be convinced otherwise. ~ Celtic Minstrel (talk) 18:35, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I completely agree that it was just clutter, I'm not arguing against that. Maybe a list of witches in general would make more sense? Amaterasu (talk) 18:52, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Hmm. There might be something to be said for a "List of Witches" page that lists them in a table with sortable columns…? ~ Celtic Minstrel (talk) 02:33, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

That might be good! If the top would display the source, and then coming down would be the list of Witches coming from the source? I'm just spitballing, but the idea is there. Amaterasu (talk) 02:48, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

What do you mean by the source? ~ Celtic Minstrel (talk) 03:06, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Presumably installment in the series? AKA Oriko Magica vs Tart Magica vs whatever else EPF (talk) 04:30, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

If it's going to be a sortable table, splitting it into one per installment is more of a detriment than an aid – putting the source as one of the columns would be more helpful. ~ Celtic Minstrel (talk) 04:44, 7 January 2025 (UTC)