The demons in Frieren really bother me. It's just such a strange choice in this otherwise incredible show to have the villains just be pure evil, cold, calculating, no emotions, mustache twirlers. In a lesser show I probably wouldn't even notice, it's pretty standard shonen stuff, but this was so much better, it just sticks out like a sore thumb.
No you're not the only one.
I wouldn't have minded if they were just purely ontologically evil- "They're from hell, they're antithetical to life" kinda deal like the curses in Jujutsu Kaisen. Make them explicitly supernatural and just roll with it because the story needs an uncomplicated villain- yeah ok, understandable.
It's all the in-universe evo psych nonsense given as "world-building" that gives me the heebie-jeebies, especially in the way in which those justifications knowingly or unknowingly mirror real-life bigotries. Having a sapient fantasy race that cannot change their inherent nature due to biology, just so that the protagonists have a narrative excuse to blast them really doesn't sit right with me at all.
Which is a shame because yeah, otherwise the show is actually pretty good, especially at exploring the breadth of human experience. So to have this weird blind-spot is baffling.
Yeah, exactly! There's no reason to put some weird borderline eugenics level understanding of evolution in there, especially in a show set in a magical fantasy world, they can just be magical monsters and it's fine.
Yeah this is why I couldn't stick with watching it.
Hitler particles are the background radiation of the Western world.
The demons are white people.
So demons are like capitalists?
No, they aren't evil because they choose to be, they're evil because they literally evolved to be evil hunters of humanity. If it was them being raised to be that way I wouldn't have a problem with it, but in a show all about the human experience, having inherently evil villains who cannot ever change their nature just feels very tonally dissonant.
They might be able to, at some point -- but the story has yet to be completed.
Would be a little awkward to have the main character kill like a million demons then reveal they're people
"Frieren is basically Ender Wiggin" is a twist that might actually make me want to watch that show
wow lol this... actually kinda tracks
I agree lol
Most magical beings in Frieren (those that disappear into nothing when slain) kill humans just because, no need to feed on them or to absorb their souls.
If they worked like animals, some generations of selective breeding would make them tolerate humans. I'm sure later, some psycho in a farm would gentrically engineer succubi but that's another point entirely.
For a more "grounded" experience, dungeon meshi tries creating an ecosystem around the fantastical creatures.
Dungeon Meshi is one of my favourite animes, but you're giving an in-universe explanation for a problem I have with the writing of the show. The demons are the way they are because they were written that way, not because of any in-universe lore.
Any in-universe lore is what it is because it was written that way though? I don't quite see your point there.
Anyway, I actually like the way the demons are written, the first thought that popped into my mind when Frieren explained that they are "evolved from creatures who cry help in the dark" (or something along those lines, I don't remember the exact quote) was of creatures from my own country's folklore, creatures who would lure you into the forest at night to drown you in ponds, others that would lure you deep into the mountains and trap you in them forever, stories like that that we grew up with as kids. So I suppose because of my own cultural context I like the idea of exploring how those kinds of beings might evolve?
The thing is usually folklore spirits behave that way because of something. It can be because they have unfinished business or they feed on fear or souls to become stronger. This gives them a pressure to evolve and become better at luring victims but I don't remember an explanation of what makes demons in Frieren kill humans apart from territorial disputes.
The Thermian Argument is a favorite of people who don't want to confront the fact that a work of fiction they enjoy radiates hazardous levels of Hitler particles
I haven't watched the show, but couldn't the Demons evolve into not killing people and it could be what the story is trying to resolve in the end. I mean they could, it all depends on the author and what he is willing/able to write and share with us. Since the entire story is made up.
I could write a vampire story, for example, where the conclusion is that even though vampires evolved to survive on human blood and need it to survive, they resolve it by just not hunting humans, because the humans are like: "Okay we can just donate some blood to y'all? We know you need it to survive so we'll just give you some." But not all vampires are willing to let go of the hunt and not all humans are okay with their blood being donated to vampires and then it turns into another plot point where you have communist-vampire alliance vs fascist-vampire alliance and that's another story and then let's say the communists win in my story and we have total defeat of fascism, now this is the most annoying one to write because I don't know what would happen under actually existing communism, never been done before. What would be the new adversaries?
And so on.
In a few scenes explaining the nature of demons, a direct one to one comparison is made between human concepts of wealth/hierarchy and how demons organize themselves using mana instead of wealth 
Unfortunately all of that is ignored by some online leftists who are more interested in the most tortured and delirious interpretation of the setting, to the point where some are convinced the demons are an allusion to marginalized people in the west, despite the fact they're literally coded as genocidal German aristocrats
Literal 
vibes
to the point where some are convinced the demons are an allusion to marginalized people in the west
One of the work's most famous narrative arcs is about how the demons' evil is racially inherited and independent of material circumstances, and even their children are dangerous monsters that can only be exterminated. Is it really so surprising that someone would see that and think of Rassenkampf and "The only good Indian is a dead Indian," instead of the political project that reformed Puyi?
There's also this line, which... well, let me put it this way: if I were to read this as an pertaining to any real-world political movement, it definitely wouldn't be the bourgeoisie.
E: If anything, the logic of Frieren reminds me of the logic of "populist" anti-capitalism, which accurately identifies and rails against the evils of capitalism but externalizes them onto an ontologically evil (generally racial, usually Jews) outsider group.
E2: Come to think of it, the genocide victim protagonist being a blonde-haired, blue-eyed young woman with a German-sounding name is eyebrow-raising as well.
Why am I supposed to see in that the logic of the political project that reformed Puyi
I don't say this usually, but shit really ain't that deep bro, despite the whole amoral species thing, the allegory and subtext about the demons is pretty well intact; German aristocrats doing genocide and colonialism, that's their theme, yeah "it's in their blood", sure call that problematic, big whoop
Come back to me when their presentation is orientalized or is harking to racial caricatures from the west, otherwise your argument is standing on sand
Also there's this, which could have come straight from a white nationalist manifesto.
Aside from the fact the context of the arc blows your accusation out of the water, Frieren isn't berating Macht for having the audacity to desire coexistence, she's pointing out his idea of "coexistence" seems to be nothing more than treating others around him as "playthings" and "curiosities" that are thrown away at the slightest inconvenience
So a creature with the goofiest German name, dressed like a noble from a Czarist court, treating those he deems lesser than himself with a colonial mindset, I wonder what the subtext could possibly be
shit really ain't that deep bro
Every element of a fictional work is placed with intent. The baby demon subplot invites one to ask what that intent is, and that question invites a certain answer, as evidenced by the fact that a large number of people from across the political spectrum all independently arrived at that answer.
German aristocrats doing genocide and colonialism, that's their theme
Which gets muddled by the fact that their POV victim is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman with a German-sounding name. Who is it that always shouts about such people being victims of genocide by an ontologically evil outside race that superficially appears to share its culture but is only pretending to assimilate so it can destroy them?
I don't say this usually, but shit really ain't that deep bro, despite the whole amoral species thing, the allegory and subtext about the demons is pretty well intact; German aristocrats doing genocide and colonialism, that's their theme, yeah "it's in their blood", sure call that problematic, big whoop
Fascists fucking love this "curtains are just blue bro, don't look into it, authors don't actually think about stuff bro, they're just story machines, don't look at the themes bro, don't think about anything and just passively absorb everything" bullshit. Media literacy is important, and it saddens me to see you think like this.
As a professional writer myself, every single theme and idea put into something is put there with intent, unconscious or not. If the show has a literal "nits make lice" scene about a child of the evil enemy it's because the author wanted to make a point about that exact idea, and in the show, it explicitly shows that the only correct and moral choice is to exterminate them all, because they are literally born evil, and are incapable of changing their nature, despite being intelligent and sapient like people and perfectly capable of descision making and personal choice(but they only ever make choices to deceive and destroy people). Can you not see how this is an extremely problematic theme in a show that is supposed to be about human connection?
I never got the point of friendren. I was expecting something like " to your eternity" where the world changed around her. supporting characters las for 4 episodes tops.
Instead we got some elf who recruits s few kids into her death squad.
The series is about the people around her changing Frieren herself and making her value the smaller things in life more, and it uses loss and melancholy as powerful devices to do so, with her going on this journey of (self)discovery because because she realised that humans are short lived and yet she never tried to learn more about her friends that she defeated the big bad evil guy with who she spent a decade or so with.
It's different to To Your Eternity which is also partially about its nigh immortal protagonist's - Inno's - growth as a person, but while frieren is growing from someone who just goes through the motions to someone who values human experiences, Inno is a blank slate learning to adult.
I just wanted to comment it's cool how the artist watermarked this
spoiler
by leaving their name in the magic crest
This is a comment section for sure.
Cw:Racism,ableism
They're also simply making racist edits of this so I guess that'll make the rounds now.
Wow I can't believe that racists are latching onto the anime whose premise is "every single member of this race is inexorably evil and they must all be exterminated, yes, even the children, and anyone who shows sympathy for them is a sentimental fool"
To be fair, the show's main theme seems to be about forming connections with others and enjoying the time you spend together, even if it is very short.
Which is why the demon stuff bothers me so much, it just makes no sense in a show like this and actively goes against the core theme of the show. It's a baffling writing choice.
I'm not ready for another frieren thread 
I've heard very mixed things about this show, and then the discourse out of this bit on twitter seemed to be fascists saying "see my favorite show has always been fascist" and then non-fascists saying "noooo, this isn't fascism its definitely not" and I don't care enough about anime to look into it.
The main character, a victim of an elf genocide goes around for about a third of the narrative bonking demons on the head, demons that happen to be one of fiction's most obvious allegories for 'uncaring genocidal aristocrats' (all of them German coded)
In a particularly tiresome extension of the culture war, both online fascists and some overreactive online leftists simultaneously hallucinated said demons of the setting to instead be an allegory for marginalized people, hence one of anime's lamest discourses was born
That's exactly what it looked like from the outside. Thank you
i've watched an enormous amount of anime, you're not missing anything. imo the best theme of 'frieren' was better explored in the series 'violet evergarden'
It's a generally chill, neurodivergent-coded magical girl anime.
I like the show and I don't think the demons are problematic
I think people are huge nerds for going "this is a fascism" out of someone making a literal demon actually evil in a setting with dragons, elves and demons and shit
I also keep thinking about how, yeah, chainsawman has better politics overall (death to america), but is it really so much better to have a depiction of a species that's 99.999% evil instead of 100% evil? not really, but I've never heard anybody ever saw Chainsawman is doing a fascism by having inherently evil devils doing evil devil shit
it's very tiring
I think it makes sense that "demons are inherently evil" becomes a loaded idea when you look at who tends to wield the "demon" accusation against whom. A hegemonic Christianity overwhelmingly accuses marginalized groups such as LGBT people, neurodiverse people, feminists, members of minority religions, and communists of being demons or possessed by demons or aligned with demons. That creates a basis for even something as seemingly tautological as "demons are always evil" to be read as right wing-coded.
I think people are huge nerds
Yeah, guilty
Chainsaw Man and JJK are examples of what the writer of Frieren was trying to subvert. i.e. they have demons that are trying to change or it shows change is possible. Frieren wanted to play against the trend by going "Nope! Our demons are just classically evil."
Unfortunately the writer didn't think about the implications or why other stories were trying to move away from the trope to begin with. I don't think they actively sat down and were all "Hehehehehe I'm gonna do a racism!" or are even racist to begin with. They just unintentionally created something racist because they live in a racist world with racist history that's impossible to ignore.
The story would be fine if racism wasn't real, but that's not the world we live in.
Welcome to c/anime on Hexbear!
A leftist general anime and donghua community for discussion and memes.
Simple rules
Be nice.
Use spoiler tags.
Don't sexualise underage characters, including 1000 year old loli ones.
Don't post hentai here. This is an anime community.
High quality threads you should definitely visit
Gigathread: Good Anime Talks, Presentations, Conventions, Panels, etc
Piracy is good and you should do more of it. Use https://aniwave.to/ and https://4anime.gg/ for streaming, and https://nyaa.si/ for torrents. Piracy is the only means of digital protest that audiences have to fight poor worker treatment.
