>>7891>Was expecting the dark twist when I first started watching it, but was still surprised when it turned into a fairly blatant Christ allegory.Like most magical girls, it's probably based off Taoism/Chinese and Japanese mythos (And Faust, and Nutcracker and other fairytales in Madoka case).
The nature of evil here is a fundamental component of the universe, an "impurity" that is constantly created by all life. Nobody is good or evil: everybody has capacity to swing one way or the other depending on the circumstances, and everybody's shadow side will be manifested under enough stress and bad circumstances.