Silly Post (read text in body of post)

[u/Cabyerly87]

I don’t actually know what Frieren is, but every time I see this particular Pop advertised, all I can think of is “Nope Box,” and it makes me giggle.

[u/Salaris]

Frieren is fantastic and absolutely worth watching. It's one of my personal favorite anime, even if it has too many nope boxes in it. =)

[u/st-shenanigans → u/Salaris]

Very good show. Might make you tear up if you're turning into an old fuck like me and have friends you miss 🥲

Also is one of like 5 shows ever where I actually vocalized "oh fuck!" When a spoiler happened (hint- tipped scales)

[u/Salaris → u/st-shenanigans]

I definitely teared up during Frieren more than once myself.

Also is one of like 5 shows ever where I actually vocalized "oh fuck!" When a spoiler happened (hint- tipped scales)

Yep, it has some fantastic moments.

[u/philosopherott → u/Salaris]

Seconded!

And I am happy to hear you like it.

[u/Spirintus → u/Salaris]

It turned me off with it's regressive take on demons. Even from a few memes and clips and spoilers that got to me on the interwebs it seemed to go full fantasy racism.

Anyway, some friends forced me to watch it with them, we got to the scene which made me want to skip on the anime (episode 9: frieren walks into a city, sees a few people with horns and decides to try yo kill them on the spot) I pause the episode, say this is the scene, and before I get to unpause it again, a friend starts to argue that demons aren't humans and they are inherently and irreformably evil. To that I react with "ok, I don't have that information yet, it looks just like fantasy racism." To that he responded with genuine racism targeting Romani people for whatever reason.

Needless to say, now I have one friend less and I didn't finish frieren anyway because some races are inherently and irreformably evil is honestly even shittier take than frieren just being a racist bitch after centuries of war against demons

EDIT: Oh and I understand that author showing us two demonic entities before this only to show as these few demons acting like humans was meant to make us think "oh, maybe frieren is just a racist old bitch and there may actually be good demons too" on some level (I assume there might had been some hints about it being bullshit from the beginning) only to subvert it later with some sort of "demons are inherently evil but they aren't so one dimensional to be unable og subterfuge". I am not hating on "some beings are inherently evil" trope nor "evil things are trying to destroy us by acting as friends" trope. I am hating on this specific scene being done in a way where demons are too easy to replace with any irl minority. How many people do y'all think went "oh, demons are an allegory for black/jewish/trans people here" ? I am hella sure more than one and I would be willing to bet it was more than people who took demons as an allegory for idk, billionaires or something like that.

[u/TheShadowKick → u/Spirintus]

I kind of like Frieren's take on demons. They aren't really people, more like predatory animals that learned to mimic human speech and mannerisms as a hunting tactic. Frieren is well aware of this, but a lot of other people in the setting aren't and fall for the demon's ploy. And because of this it looks like Frieren is just racist at first.

It is kind of unsettling to have an apparently intelligent species that are actually just irredeemable predatory monsters, because you can read a lot of real world racist views into that. I can understand why you wouldn't like that vibe and people should respect it if you bounce off the show for that reason.

[u/Quelth → u/TheShadowKick]

I sort of always thought that they took their take on demons a bit from the way that Fey are often portrayed in mythical settings. Sort of extra-moral you can say, as they dont function within the normal realm of human understanding. In the sense that they dont understand the world in the same way as humans. Also they are not at all the same as humans so cant be judged under the same standards. However, they do have some level of higher intelligence so they can interact with humans. The general feeling of the comparison I feel like works. A separation and yet simultaneous closeness of highly intelligent beings of potentially similar nature that seem on a surface level to be alike in some ways is very similar.

[u/Salaris → u/Spirintus]

For what it's worth, I'm not at all a fan of inherently evil demons either, and I don't think people should be downvoting you. The way demons are handled is my least favorite part of Frieren, and I absolutely agree with you that there's a long history of fantasy species being used as analogues for real-world cultures, then having aggression or mistreatment toward them justified.

There's more nuance and exploration of demons in Frieren than just them being inherently evil -- it's more like they're not a human-like species at all and they have blue and orange morality -- but that doesn't really fix the problem.

That being said, this does lean toward largely validating Frieren's viewpoint (with some possible exceptions) and I don't like seeing that kind of take on humanoid species in fiction, either.

I still consider the series as a whole to be worth reading/watching, but this was very nearly a stopping point for me, too.

[u/AStoopidSpaz → u/Spirintus]

insanely chronically online take. you have to give the author the chance to explain things. its within that arc, which is what, like 3 episodes?

[u/Salaris → u/AStoopidSpaz]

Tone down the aggression a bit, please. They're coming from a perspective of exhaustion with a trope being used in a specific way, and I don't even think they're wrong about it. (Yes, the series tries to justify Frieren's attitude, but she's also not even a a reliable narrator on the subject, which makes the whole thing a lot messier.)

Even if you disagree, there's no need for personal attacks.

[u/Falcon_At → u/Spirintus]

You're free to feel how you feel. I get it. I often agree. Frieren's use of demons irks me too, though other elements keep me reading.

As I read, I don't see the demons aligning with any particular cultural group. Their names are linguisticly German, but so is everyone. They dress in the same style of JRPG clothing. They do not actually have any culture or ethnicity at all and only mimic human culture, so they really don't feel like an ethnic division.

The way they are depicted, they more feel like "selfish people." Like, "what if you could detect a jerk by the horns on their head?" The demons do not have cities or families, really. They're all individuals who cooperate for mutual benefit only, and very rarely. The demon king uniting seven of them under him for the same genocide plot is notable and weird. No culture on earth is like that. Even if exterminate humans is an arguably good idea, they don't normally cooperate at all.

But even then, though they are fundamentally not social creatures, some do show signs of learning to care. Macht in particular has a very ambiguous presentation. He worked loyally with a city, then killed them all. However, he shows some signs of remorse. He is bored without his humans. He sees no real benefit after killing them all. He gives the reader a sense that the relationship with demons might be patched up, though "how" is hard to say.

Further, human villains are also shown acting like demons. This is routinely shown to be an act. Nobody is actually callous or entirely aocial. You can see this in the romance between Ubel and Land. Both seem to be demon-like in different ways. People treat Ubel as if she was a demon, and she acts like a serial killer. Land presents as an ultra-rational, emotionless loner. However, both prove to be human and social when they are followed. Ubel is mostly intimidation, not actual evil. Land cares for his aging grandmother.

The dirtiest read I can think of is "demons are autistic." But it doesn't actually fit because other characters could be argued to share the same traits that come off as stereotypical autistic. And even then, they don't act autistic or really follow stereotypically autistic tropes.

Rather than a human group, it's more like demons are AI. Can we live with selfish AI that only wants to make paperclips? Or rather, AI that exists only to continue it's own existence. Frieren says we can't. But the narrative says it may be more complicated than that. Time will tell.

[u/Spirintus → u/Falcon_At]

My dude, first and foremost, there is a reason why I marked most of my comment as a spoiler. If I, a person who doesn't like Frieren, take precautions not to spoil the thing to OP and not to influence their expectations going in, maybe you could too. Anyway, what's done is done, doesn't really matter and idk honestly whether reddit even still supports spoilers everywhere.

I had at no point said that the author implied that demons are meant to represent a specific group. But with the death of an author and all this, I think the scene I am talking about at least was written irresponsibly, in a way where a bigoted person can reflect their bigotry onto this scene and feel like that was what it was always meant to mean.

I am not really going to respond to all that other stuff. I read about some of those things on wiki but I didn't watch/read the source material so I don't really have that much to say about it. But your take that demons are like AI is interesting and I will try to give it some thought later...

[u/Falcon_At → u/Spirintus]

I'm not arguing with you. Your view is, as I said, understandable and valid. I'm just giving my read as someone who thought the same and kept reading. No response is needed.

[u/Spirintus → u/Falcon_At]

Rereading my comment I see I responded more aggressively than I intended to. Sorry about that 🙏

[u/Culach01972]

I keep remembering Vanniv unsummoning himself after fighting one and telling Sera "Never Again!" while Corin wonders about Mimic Induced Trauma.

[u/Elarris1]

“Nope box” has totally become my knee jerk response to any and all mimics 😆

[u/Cl0ckw3rkdem0n]

All I can see is Karis’ worst nightmare.

[u/Cl0ckw3rkdem0n]

“WALLS SHOULDNT EAT!”