It is one thing to want something for so long and then to realize that you will never reach it.  It is another thing to come to the understanding that you will still keep trying despite knowing that you will never reach it.  And it is still yet another thing to realize that what you believed in was a lie all along.

When I first learned the story of Sayaka Miki I think it was difficult for me to resonate with her struggle keenly.  I understood the tragedy of her story, but I saw her as brash, naive, and stubborn.  However, I wrote in 2013 in that I realized some things that made me feel like I started to understand her struggle a bit more.  I think I had begun to understand the idea of believing in something flawed, and had a greater appreciation of that "stubbornness".  And I also realize now the feeling of being betrayed by an ideal.  You could argue that Sayaka's naivety makes her story more "human".  That this is a flaw in her character, one that makes it resonant.  I think that's true to some extent, but humans are not the only species that are naive.  Perhaps what makes her struggle truly human is her struggle to maintain her beliefs despite being proven wrong.  In a way you could say this is an attachment to the past -- a sort of sunk-cost fallacy, if you will.  But I think it's more than that, too.  The idea of choosing to spend effort on something that is known to ultimately be futile, I think is something that feels to me to be uniquely human.  Like most good stories, Sayaka's portrayal to me doesn't have a defined single message or "moral" -- indeed, her story resolves in different ways depending on the universe.  I think this is by nature, as you can't simply "fix" this struggle by finding an answer.  It is simply something to be experienced and to learn your way through.

--September 7, 2021