Talk:Timeline

Killing Kyubey

Whoever said that is overthinking this. Homura only killed Kyubey twice in the fifth timeline as stated. The March 18th event only happened in the fourth timeline, and we can infer Homura did something else in the fifth timeline, maybe by distracting Kyubey or Mami somehow. Would you mind if I edit this to add in other timelines? -- Universalperson 18:06, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Have fun editing, I'm going to be busy looking for moon pictures.

Whichever anon is doing the majority of the editing for this, I believe you've got quite some time missing in the middle of timeline 5 there. A full moon is shown at the beginning of episode 7, right after the reveal that the magical girls are actually their soul gems in episode 6. This implies that it occurs on April 16th or 17th, not as late as the 24th. I don't think Shaft would mess this up- they're making a point to get it accurate. The day after that (around April 18th), Kyousuke returns to school, and Hitomi gives her ultimatum. That night is the Elsa Maria fight. Later the same night, Sayaka runs away in the rain, and Homura talks to Kyouko about Walpurgis Night. I think a time skip follows that, based on the moon.AzureThunder 23:17, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I've been trying to figure out what's going on with that. After Homura and Kyouko have the talk in homu home, we see Hitomi hit on Kyousuke. Then Madoka goes to Sayaka's home and learns she didn't come back last night, and runs off to look for her. That's the day after the full moon. Next is the Sayaka vs Homura confrontation, which has a crescent moon. So if there's a time skip, it happens around 9:40 ep 8. Then we see Madoka in the park running around searching for Sayaka, so the skip went by with Madoka still running around, no indication of Sayaka contacting her or her parents, or any police search, and the transition looks as if she went off fighting the same night as a reaction to seeing the couple.

This page needs some major edits now that the last two episodes have revealed that our timeline isn't timeline 5. Looks like the subtle differences between episode 1 and the end of 10 weren't just for show. It's still hard to tell a lot of things though.

E11

The funeral narration states that Sayaka went missing on the 12th, but Sayaka was seen by several people after this, and when Madoka visited her parents the apparent last-seen date was the 20th. Either the 12th is a mistranslation, it refers to when she started cutting school rather than when she was last seen, or the timeline is wrong. The moon on the 12th was a half moon, but there was a full moon when Sayaka returned to her house after the bridge scene.

The audio clearly says 12日 (juu-ni nichi), so it is not a translation error. --KFYatek 08:29, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Because it's been officially stated that Sayaka went missing on the 12th, all the events that took place before she went missing from home and school (the night she killed Elsa Maria) have to be redated to before the 12th. I know quite a bit of effort was put into indentifying the dates from the moon phases, but the spoken statement ought to take precedence.--60.53.91.70 08:29, 4 July 2011 (UTC) anon

Yeah, this is a problem. And pushing it back makes Homura's comment to Kyouko about Walpurgis coming in two weeks fall about three weeks before it. I'll have to get the BD versions and see if they fixed anything, although the chances of that are low. KM 17:09, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

A band-aid reason for calling timeline 5 timeline 5 has been added to avoid the confusion of making timeline nomenclature different than what has been used in all the speculah and analysis so far.

Clocks

E12: When Madoka meets Mami and Kyouko after making her wish, the clock reads exactly midnight.

Numbering Additional Timelines

Proposed standard for numbering timelines other than the ones listed: ISO PWI ????:2011 Numbering Additional Timelines

Integers will be used for timelines 1 through 5 as numbered in the chart of timelines, and timeline 6, which is the new universe timeline in which Homura meets Madoka's family.

Other timelines will use decimals, similar to software version numbers. They will be numbered in chronological order when possible. If chronological order does not make sense, they will be numbered in the order in which Homura perceives them. If the order is not known, a letter may be used until enough evidence is available.

Example:

Timeline 4: As seen in ep 10, Homura wakes up, fixes her eyes and hair, kills witches, and attempts to defeat Walpurgis alone.

Timeline 4.1: As seen at the end of ep 10, Homura shoots Kyubey and encounters Madoka.

Timeline 4.1.1: An example-only timeline that occurs between 4.1 and 4.2, but was only discovered after 4.2 had already been named.

Timeline 4.2: An example-only timeline that occurs after 4.1, but before 5.

Timeline 4.x: The timeline the Oriko manga takes place in, which happens after Homura changes her hair, but before Madoka eliminates witches in timeline 5. (Note: There has been speculation that this timeline is part of a separate story continuity, and may not fit in with the anime timelines.)

Timeline 5: The main timeline most of the anime takes place in.

I'll ask the obvious question...what is the reason we need this kind of detailed numbering system? Has there really been confusion about what occurs in sequence within a given timeline from an anime, or has the confusion centered more around what event is coming from which source? What I think would be helpful is adding new charts. For instance, one for BD/DVD additions like the Drama CD from Vol. 1 that add more detail to the timelines. But it should be a separate chart so someone who has only watched the anime doesn't get confused about all the things they supposedly "missed." You can also expand the original anime timeline chart to include notations of where chronologically additions from the BD/DVD extras occurred to place the timing, but have all the details in its own chart. Needs it anyways, based on the level of detail we're seeing. Same for Oriko, a separate one for its own timeline, with a notation of when approximately we think it occurred in the original timeline chart. --randomanon 14:54, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

There's been confusion about which events happen in which timelines, whether things like the end of ep 10 are separate timelines, which timelines the "countless repetitions" fall between, and why timeline 5 isn't the 5th timeline Homura experienced. The detail makes sure don't have to keep changing the system if new spinoffs or flashbacks add more timelines. Even if no new canon material comes out, it might help fan fiction make more sense. The chart idea would be great. The current one is pretty old, and more charts like that would make this stuff easier to understand. KM 15:15, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the problem you're describing stems more from speculah about there being more timelines than we see in episode 10 and general confusion about time travel altogether. Part of it is a translation issue. Both gg and Nutbladder referred to Homura traveling "countless" timelines in episode 11, strongly implying more. Yesy provided a more correct translation of "many" which leaves the door more open to either interpretation. Either way you look at it, we don't have any evidence to be able to number the timelines anything other than what we have now, TL1-5 and maybe TL6 if you refer to Madoka's new universe at that, though you could argue it's TL1 in a brand new universe, since she remade everything so TL1-5 never existed. The sub-numbering seems like an onerous task, and I'm not sure how much users are going to adopt it, but I'm not one to stop someone from being more organized. --randomanon 17:02, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Speculated numbers on timelines

We should probably put at least some guesses in. The only two guesses I can make are that the main timeline is timeline 13 (there are 12 pictures in the OP's bit about the lost future) and that it's timeline 15 (there are 14 strings of fate attached to Madoka during Kyubey's lecture to Homura). Of these, I think the latter's likely to be correct, since the OP scene cuts away without revealing whether there could have been more. Anyone got any others?