Speculah:Prior Lives of Witches

With witches are fallen magical girls theory proven true, the fan base has moved to speculate the prior lives of the girls and the nature of their wishes prior to their witchification. This page is dedicated to such speculations*:

• Please keep in mind that the wishes of the girls do not explicitly and directly shape their barrier/labyrinth. For example, despite using a wish to heal someone, Oktavia's barrier has nothing to do with healing, arms, or hospitals, and instead everything to do with the target of her wish and the Witch's "favorite things" before transformation, in other words, music and violin. Therefore, any speculation made by looking at a Witch's barrier is more likely to reflect on their personality than on their direct wish.

Gertrud

Her rose and mustached minions led one to believe that she may once been a "ojou-sama" that fell in love and made a wish similar to Sayaka's.

Another hypothesis is that, given the roses, her butterfly wings and hideous appearance, she might have been an aesthetically unpleasant girl, with an interest for insects, particularly butterflies. She might have made a wish to become beautiful, like her beloved butterflies emerging from a chrysalis.

Suleika

She has a "delusional nature." This might mean the magical girl suffered from some sort of mental disorder. Her wish could have been to cure it, or even to make her delusions into a reality.

Given her theme of darkness and "delusional nature," she might have been a girl who developed blindness and used her wish to regain her sight. During her time when she was still blind, she had plenty of time to imagine what the world looked like, and thus developed all sorts of expectations. After she gained her sight through the wish, however, she saw that the world was in actuality a place where sad and ugly things were a common occurrence. Realizing that all her expectations were just mere delusions and losing faith in the world, she fell into despair and becomes a Witch. The fact that she reigns in darkness is testament to the time when she was blind: in darkness, one can let one's imagination run wild.

File:Charlotte as a normal girl.jpg

Artist rendition of Charlotte as normal girl

Charlotte

Based on her lair that splices hospital and dessert imagery, the fanbase speculated that Charlotte was a young terminal cancer patient whom contracted with Kyubey in order to recover. Her desire for cheese can be explained by the fact that many cancer patients cannot ingest dairy.

A number of fans suspect that the title character of the unreleased prequel manga Oriko Magica will become Charlotte. Oriko herself is clearly a young girl, as many speculate Charlotte was, and it seems that she will be associating with Kyoko and Mami. Since Kyoko loves food, and Mami gets killed by Charlotte, Oriko becoming Charlotte would then be ironic. Furthermore, since Homura is stated to appear in Oriko, it's possible that the events of the manga will occur while Homura is still in the hospital. If that is true, then it's also possible that Homura will appear because Oriko herself is in the same hospital, matching the speculation of Charlotte being a cancer patient.

There may actually be some evidence for this. The runes in Episode 3 refer to Mami by name and Homura as "Homuhomu" (which seems to be the origin for Homura's fan nickname). All runes appear to be messages from the witch or her familiars, which then implies that Charlotte actually knew their names.

This speculation has hit a bit of a snag when several preview images of Oriko Magica volume 1 were released, which reveal that the girl on the cover is actually not Oriko. It's still possible the girl on the cover will become Charlotte, regardless.

Elly

File:Fanart H.N.Elly.jpg

Artistic creation of Elly as a Puella Magi

Judging from the imagery within her barrier (in particular the silhouette of a girl with twintails within the TV-body of Elly; it must be noted that the witch herself also has twintails) and the statement that the witch is a shut-in, she may have been a recluse who wished for popularity as an idol and eventually broke down under the pressure (of being an idol, a magical girl, or both.) H.N. may thus refer to not just her nickname on the internet, but her handle name as an idol.

Her personality description refers to her as someone who collects things in glass boxes; more than likely, and given the fact her familiars are dolls, she had a collection of dolls. (Though one can doubt they looked as creepy as her familiars).

Her barrier is loosely themed after a carousel; it's possible she enjoyed riding on them, or that the carousel is a way to symbolize something about her life, for example, ever spinning and never being able to stop.

Albertine

It's possible that this witch was a very young girl. She is described as a scribbling witch: "scribbling" is an activity associated with young children, and her familiars are suitably crudely-drawn. Furthermore, she is stated to love hide-and-seek, a popular game among children.

Her familiar Anja provides further proof. Apart from being crudely drawn, as stated above, it has the appearance of a very young girl flying around in different vehicles: planes, boats and cars, that transform into one another. It's common to see children playing around with vehicular toys by "flying" them around, with their hands. The familiar apparently got "lost while playing alone" while daydreaming, an unfortunate, but common occurrence to children. It's further tragic that this happened to a "girl" that was already a creature spawned by a witch. Anja also attacks humans by turning them into balls and bouncing them around once for each lie they have ever uttered. In addition to ball games being a universal activity for children, they are also usually lied to, be it to make them happy or to protect them from things they cannot understand. Furthermore, children tend to react badly to being lied to, much more so than adults. Finally, this familiar is described as being naïve, an innate characteristic of children: in fact, being naïve is stated to be her "duty." This can be connected to the relatively modern idea of children needing to be raised in a purer, more innocent environment.

As her familiars (namely, Anja) resemble young children, Albertine might have not been able to make friends at kindergarten or school, and thus wished to make friends with her classmates. Her friends might not have been what she hoped: maybe they were too friendly and meddlesome, too many to handle, or just plain bad friends. However, being a young girl, emotional reasons for her demise are difficult to determine: young children can have unpredictable mood swings. Kyubey's recruiting of a human with more volatile mood swings than his normal target demographic of pubescent girls suggests that he was once willing to experiment with his subjects, in turn indicating a looser organization of his species' plan to reduce universal entropy.

As Albertine's nature is ignorance, she may have become a witch because she didn't know she had to recharge her Soul Gem. While Kyubey ordinarily tells new magical girls about the use of Grief Seeds to purify Soul Gems, he may have chosen not to tell Albertine due to her not being particularly useful in fighting witches; she may also have expended her Soul Gem before Kyubey could have her recharge it.

Gisela

Gisela may have been interested in the natural sciences, or wished for intelligence. She may also have wished for entry into a prestigious university and excelled there ("her body was once dazzling with silver"), only to break down under stress ("her body has rusted") caused by an inability to keep up with the fast-paced life of academia. The fact that she alone is dull in her quickly-moving barrier suggests that no-one reached out to her or tried to help her.

Alternatively, given her nature being a "liberal" one, her focus might have been interested in areas leading to one of the so-called "liberal arts," such an law, economy, sociology, and other human sciences. Thus, stating that she cannot use any sort of scientific power may be a play on the rivalry that usually exists between universities of science and human sciences, and even between professionals of both.

Using another definition of the word "liberal," Gisela may have been strongly in favor of governmental or social reforms. If we connect this to her becoming a Witch, then her speaking out against the status quo could have caused her to be persecuted at school or at work, leading her to ultimately break under the emotional pressure. The fact that her familiars' duty is to declare opinions strengthens this theory.

Elsa Maria

Possibly a similar story to Kyouko, or possibly Kyouko's younger sister.

As she seems of a religious bent and her shadow takes humans and animals alike without discrimination, her wish could have been a vaguely-worded one to help others (which the Incubators' plan already does) or to bring salvation to all, and she might have devoted her life as a magical girl to the destruction of the "demonic beings" witches appear to be. (Many Christian demons have unusual forms, so thinking witches as agents of Hell is presumably an easy mistake to make.) Her own transformation into a witch might have been initiated by the reveal that witches are former magical girls, leading Elsa Maria to realize that the witches she had been slaying without question until now were other magical girls instead of servants of the Devil, and consequently fall into despair. If that is the case, her intentions are ironically fulfilled after she is transformed into a witch, as her shadow now liberates any and all. Her praying posture may be as a result of her regret for inadvertently slaying witches: she seeks redemption by constantly praying for their souls as well as the rest of humanity. Her thematic links to the Tree of Knowledge might come from her belief that she made the same mistake as Eve when accepting to become a magical girl, with Kyubey taking the role of the Serpent.

Interestingly, Kriemhild Gretchen -- the most powerful witch in the series -- is the only other witch known to absorb life with the intent of "saving" it.

Uhrmann

She may have been an dog-lover, or made a wish relating to animals. The fact that she wishes to be loved may indicate that she was a lonely girl who found comfort in animals. Her demise might have be caused by witnessing the cruelty other humans practice toward animals (e.g., beating up abandoned dogs, animal testing, animal fighting, etc.). Her witch form might be one of a dog because she experienced their pain, and because she then probably despised anything human.

In that sense, it is possible that this witch is actually Satomi Usagi from Kazumi Magica, as she loves animals, wants to be a vet, and wished to be able to talk to them.

Two strikes against this: Satomi seems more like a cat person than a dog person. In addition, it isn't known whether Kazumi Magica takes place before or during the anime.

It is also possible that she actually was a dog with a very primitive wish to be loved, leading Kyubey to give her magical powers (presumably in an experiment to see if species other than humans could provide emotional output); that her familiars take the form of will-less humans suggests that her powers of thought and imagination are far less than those of the other Witches. The fact that she and her familiars were given family names instead of given names indicates a further level of dehumanization.

However, her informational card states that she has taken the form of a dog (Japanese: inu no sugata o shita, lit. "turned into the form of a dog"), indicating that she was not one originally. The original Japanese text could also be translated as "wore the form of a dog," a reference to fairy tales in which heroines literally wore the skins of animals to take on their forms (though rarely of their own free will).

Taking this alternation translation further, Uhrmann's having "worn" a dog form could actually confirm her being a dog, as the perfect aspect suggests a finished action: she may once have lived as an animal, but is now an entirely different being altogether.

Oktavia von Seckendorff

See: Sayaka Miki.

Izabel

May have wished to be an artist, based on all the references to Picasso and other artists in her barrier.

This gains more evidence from her official description, which calls her an artist witch, with the nature of vanity. Perhaps she desired to be famous.

The witch's card remarks that her barrier art draws strong influence from more famous works. Izabel may have been an artist suffering from a creative block, and she wished for new ideas which warped her perception of reality.

She may also be one of the historically-recognizable girls shown to Madoka when Kyubey revealed the long history of Incubators and Humanity: Joan of Arc.

Izabel's form resembled the Arc de Triomphe, a monument honoring those who fought and died fighting in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, which may reflect her military leadership and patriotism in the earlier Hundred Years' War. It also may act as something of a visual "pun" (Joan of Arc, Arc de Triomphe). The Arc is in Paris, and is part of a route of monuments that terminates at the Louvre, the most visited art museum in the world (thus: "within her barrier only exist works that you have probably seen somewhere before"). The Picasso painting Guernica that forms the ground of Izabel's maze was painted for the Paris International Exposition in the 1937 World's Fair in Paris-- further reflecting a pride of France--and depicts the horrors of war (she was captured in battle and eventually burned at the stake).

Isabelle Romée is the name of Joan of Arc's mother.

If she is Joan of Arc, then Izabel's nature of vanity is a justified warping of how famous the The Maid of Orléans has become. Her despair at her fate, helpless to protect herself--much less her country--likely fueled her own encouragement of Homura in Episode 10 to 'just die'.

Patricia

Up this witch's skirt appears to be some sort of infinite orifice. Given the uniforms, the above fact that witches originate from young girls, and the odd position the Witch appears to be in, it is likely that Patricia was someone who fell to despair and turned into a Witch because of sexual abuse. The uniforms on clotheslines could symbolize her constantly washing her uniform due to her feeling "dirty".

The official descriptions says she is a "class representative witch." She thus may have wished for the position, but considering the relative ease behind becoming a class representative (all one has to do is volunteer and receive a majority vote), it's more likely that her classroom role simply played a defining role in her life. It's also possible that Patricia was a very controlling person, based off the spider and spider-thread imagery, and the fact that her familiars are entirely controlled by the witch's threads. This in turn suggests that Patricia may have fallen out of popularity or lost the respect of her fellow students, causing her to question her role and fall into despair.

Roberta

The official description for this witch suggests that she lived a life of debauchery, constantly getting drunk and flirting with men. Roberta may have wished for a more beautiful appearance or simply the ability to attract the attention of others -- something which, unfortunately, caused her to attract much unwanted attention from men who didn't value her for much more than her body (as indicated by the Witch's appearance being reduced to a pair of garter-clad legs and lingerie). She thus could have felt as if she was constantly on display, as if in a birdcage. The fact that she is the only witch we know whose familiars are in no way benefiting her (Anja may be too dumb to seek out Albertine when they play hide-and-seek, but at least she'll try) and instead frustrating and annoying her also indicates that she probably felt she had little control over the situation.

As the witch was shown in an alternate timeline, it is speculated that this witch was Mami. The reasons for this speculation are as follows: a flower pattern is seen on Roberta's clothing and the floor of her barrier (although the pattern also resembles a gear), she seems to explode into muskets (Mami's weapon) when killed, and of course, the witch has no head. The cage she appears in, as well as the general emptiness of her barrier, would then symbolize Mami's isolation. Also, the witch's name coincides with the likely inspiration for Mami's musket summoning, Roberta from Black Lagoon. The main strike against this theory is that if Mami transformed into a witch in that timeline, she wouldn't have lost her head against Charlotte. The official description of the witch also seems to contradict this theory, suggesting instead a party girl who desired attention from others.

Roberta may have also been a victim of abuse. Puella Magi are traditionally young girls, but she wears more provocative clothing, is lusted after by her own familiars (who she disgusts), and has a noted weakness for alcohol. It's possible that she was pressured into a relationship, or even drugged, by an older man; the fact that her familiars have bird heads could allude to them being cuckolds, AKA unfaithful married men, and she takes her rage out on these representations of her abuser(s). Alternatively, she could have been a participant in 'enjo kosai', also known as compensated dating.

Kriemhild Gretchen

See: Madoka Kaname.

Walpurgis Night

Some fans speculate that this is the witch form of Homura. Evidence supporting this theory are mechanical gears on the witch's body, also seen in Homura's shield. This would imply that Homura becoming a witch is a meta-timeline event, thanks to her time travel-related wish.

Others speculate that Walpurgis is the witch-form of a magical girl who defeated a previous Walpurgis. Some go as far to suggest that Walpurgis is of extraterrestrial origin.

Another line of speculation is that Walpurgis is actually a composite being formed from a number of witches fusing into one super-witch. This comes from the fact that Walpurgis Night is, in German folklore and Goethe's Faust, a gathering of witches. According to this theory, the witches are "gathering" into one. If true, Walpurgis technically has no prior existence as a magical girl. It also offers an explanation for the subtle differences between the Walpurgis seen in episode 1 and the other two seen in episode 10; they're formed from different combinations of witches.

Other people have stated that this witch may in fact be Madoka, whose association with Homura led to its bearing similarities.

In episode 11, Walpurgis summons familiars that strongly resemble the outlines of other Puella Magi (seen in both paintings at Homura's house and the end card lineup). More of these figures surround her when she is close to defeat at Madoka's hands. It may be that Walpurgis has some form of control over past Puella Magi/witches, or draws her power from their despair upon defeat.

Also see Speculah:Walpurgis Night.