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Episode 7: Like a Fairy Tale

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Testing

1 episode per week has got me itching for more

Harrison

Can't wait for Flexie to recognize Lügner's VA. Can't unhear it once you know.

Vaxus335

This arc is so damn good.

Jake Thompson

If you remember at the beginning of the episode, the party is talking about how Flamme has been gone so long that it's hard to say if she ever existed or if she was just a fairy tale, and Frieren commented that "I'm probably the only one who remembers her face." Himmel's motivation for having the statues made can all tie back to that.

Geo

Good start to this mini arc. Can't wait for next couple episodes.

yelloboirick

Good to see you react to Frieren in contrast to JJK, more tears of joy vs tears of anger/despair haha. BTW, the creator of Frieren is a woman and a lot of the best/strongest characters in the series are women, which unfortunately is kinda rare in anime.

Milosz Skowronski

I personally love this portrayal of demons. They aren't "evil" in a moral sense of the word. They are as much evil to us as a lion is evil to a gazelle that it hunts. They simply evolved to prey on humans, and developed speech as a mechanism that helps them accomplish that goal - for demons speech is the same as claws are for a lion. There's more lore coming, but this much nuance already puts Frieren's demons above many other depictions of run-of-the-mill bad-guy demons in other anime.

Dylan Kennedy

Hi Flexie I’m a new member to your community and have been enjoying all of your reactions ever since I first discovered you on YouTube through demon slayer. Just wanted to answer your question at the end. “But I guess the biggest reason is so you won’t be alone in the future. We’re not fairy tales. We really existed.” Like I saw someone mention this is a throwback to their previous conversation about her mentor Flamme being considered a fairy tale as all of her works found were fakes. Frieren mentions how she is probably the only one who remembers her face because of how much time has passed. I believe Himmel has the statues made for Frieren because one hundred or one thousand years into the future she will remember they really existed and it wasn’t fake.

SpectreHarlequin

I liken it to a duck call, we're not looking to really communicate with the duck, we're just making sounds to have the duck come to us. That's the same with demons. Lügner: Let me tell Graf that my father's room is the same. Later, I don't even know what a father is.

PearseNation

I've started portraying this kind of evil in my DnD games. I like it a lot more than just wanton destruction.

Melley Cat

Oh yes, agreed >:3 HAH!

Melley Cat

I'll just say, you're in for a treat Soon(tm). And the next few weeks with singular episodes will be slightly agonizing to wait for your reactions xD Glad you enjoyed~ Welcome to demons lol

Sergio Guzman

"Is so you won't be alone in the future". This is how true love defies time.

Andres

“We weren’t fairy tales. We really existed…” and then the look directly at the camera was so real. 💀

Andres

Also, this is my first time watching this, so idk if it’s a spoiler but I know some German and Lügner means liar.

Caradoc Elmet

Did you know Himmel means both 'sky' and 'heaven'? So when Frieren says, "We're going to heaven," she's also saying, "We're going to Himmel." Himmel saying he wants lots of statues so that Frieren won't feel alone after they've gone; so she can remember they were real people when the rest of the world has turned them into fairytales. That gets me so strongly. To think he thought about her so deeply he'd even be considering her existence long into a life he couldn't even imagine. The depth of his feeling for her is something I couldn't imagine anyone feeling for me. It's so beautiful.

Caradoc Elmet

I love it, too. I especially love the idea that they evolved from creatures that cried, "Help," from dark alleys to lure their human prey. It's such a simple idea but one so believable. Lots of real living things imitate other things to lure or hide from each other. It's not unbelieveable that a creature could mimic a human cry for help*. Frieren has so many little touches of perfection that just slide by and make the world seem so real, despite all the elves and fireballs and dragons and so on. It's so well crafted. *have you ever heard foxes mating? They sound so much like human babies in severe distress it's chilling. The common frog in the UK sounds like a human baby when my cat picks one up in its mouth, too. So freaky.

Logan Macaskill

literally dying in anticipation for the next 3 episodes. they cant come fast enough :D

PG Modehouse

The choice to make demons irredeemable in the show was mechanically an interesting one, to bring up adaptive evolution in their development from monsters who cried "help" to prey on humans, into demons with higher order thinking who developed on this skill to better deceive their prey. This is a fun and fascinating concept to me, I really enjoyed animal behavior and biology classes in college. However in terms of underlying messaging and subtext, I think the choice to make "peace envoys" evil was a disappointing one, and naive with regards to what it implies IRL, probably my only complaint about an otherwise perfect show. I worry that people with xenophobic tendencies will twist this messaging to draw analogies between the show's demons and whoever their IRL perceived foreign threat of the month is, even though we're all human.

Christian R Lewis-Batista

Wearing the Grimmjow shirt while being introduced to Lugner, same VA as Sukuna as well. Wonderful coincidence.

Ryan Jones

There are a million different shows that portray the monsters as misunderstood or redeemable. I personally enjoy shows for the entertainment value and interesting portrayals of different concepts, if I was concerned about them teaching me moral lessons I’d watch after school specials instead

PG Modehouse

Actually I think it's the opposite, there are a million different mindless action shows that go the "this whole species is irredeemable" route, with mustache-twirling one dimensional villains, and it tends to be a lazy writing choice at best, or it leans into its implications and weird overtones at worst, like AoT. Right off the bat, this show aimed deeper at big existential questions. And that's why it's the one disappointing flaw.

meatbun

late reply, and apologies if you weren't looking for this discussion, but I wanted to say that I think what frieren is going for in regards to irredeemable demons is that the demons in frieren are a completely different species of animal to humans altogether, similar to wolves vs sheep. To sheep, wolves are going to always appear evil, because their instinctive nature is to hunt sheep. And that is the demons' function in relation to humanity. They evolved to look like humans and speak like humans only to hunt humans, and therefore frieren is not in the wrong for killing them, because on a fundamental level, they are a threat to humanity. You cannot fault a sheep for trying to protect itself against a wolf. The idea that demons in frieren are unable to communicate and coexist with humans is not coming from frieren's prejudice or hatred, but instead a thorough understanding of how demons are. I get the concerns for potential lazy writing and IRL implications, but I don't think it should be the fault of the writing in Frieren, as it discusses something different to those problems.

Zachary Mullins

for sure! the whole food chain/survival thing is definitely what they were going for imo, but i think i also understand where the others were coming from. even wolves can be domesticated (“tamed”) to be complicit with being “fed” instead of hunting. but in this case, despite the obvious intelligence and communicative ability, the show still portrays every single demon as incapable of empathy. maybe that’s the case in this universe! but it goes against one’s suspension of disbelief- even when it comes to fantasy. though demons have a different culture and way of looking at the world, it’s clearly demonstrated that those things are instilled into them. the idea that nature will always overrule nurture in terms of these sentient creatures is off putting for many people for a lot of reasons.

Jan Negrey

I mean if someone was spewing stuff like that against Humans IRL - yes definitely. But in fiction it is okay if done correctly. I live in a place where there are a lot of bigots and xenophobes and they will always find the reason to hate. It doesn't mean that fiction needs to be "clean", because it still won't stop them from hating. If someone is drawing parallels between demons in Frieren to people in real life... well this is dehumanization and not understanding fiction. Such people already have a lot of problems and cause a lot of problems. At worst Frieren will add to it in such a miniscule way that it will still make no difference. As for abundance of showings of this type of stories... you're both sort of correct. It used to be quite popular trope to have irredeemable monsters. But in modern fiction it is a trope that is shunned. So to me it is refreshing to see it done.... and done very well for that matter. So whether you've seen a lot of those stories or few will depend on what you read and watch etc. And going back to people who hate (or as Commander Sinclair from Babylon 5 would call them: "The hate peddlers") - I've been beaten many times by "following the 'wrong' team" in sports. I don't think that many bigots will watch Frieren and I don't think that if Frieren did things differently they would somehow change their minds. So to me this argument sounds moot - I want to stress it out - in this particular case of Frieren. It's very easy to screw up this trope and then implications might be much more substantial. If you want to have this discussed - I suggest watching this episode "watchalong" on 3BSkyen YouTube channel. Guy knows a lot about this. There are also videos on this topic, but some are better, some are worse. And of course I have personal opinions on the matter, but sadly that would involve spoilers and my personal thoughts on the matter, since I've been thinking about possibility of Demons and Humans coexisting in Frieren for 3 years now. And don't get me wrong. You're not a bad person for having those worries. In fact I would call it a good trait. It's just that In my opinion in this case your fears are unfounded. Whether that diminishes your enjoyment of series - well that is the beauty of art. There is no "objectively correct way to appreciate and interpret it" (I've been in Academia so long that I always have to remind myself that sadly many people don't get this and say stuff like "Frieren is objectively bad"). So not my place to tell you what to like, which parts you liked, which you didn't etc. I genuinely and unironically wish you the very best.

Kcosta

You you did actually basically beg for more hero backstory lol

Kcosta

Minute 28 They’re also good guards that look for peace and use the law properly

Jan Negrey

I don't think we know whether they are a Woman or a Man. They never revealed it. And while google translate is terrible with genders, their co-worker to whom Yamada Kanehito was an apprentice uses specifically male world to describe them (which of course might be obfuscation). The picture that was shown on the net was AFAIK a picture of different person with same name and surname. Then again, I always felt that it seemed like it was written by a Woman.

Holy Arathi

I love that line, “I’m strong you know?” “Stronger than me?” “No…. Stronger than Aura.” Like a fuck you I can take you and your boss out without much of a thought.

Ryuuji Gremory

If you aren't a racist bigot you would never think about using a fictional work that portrays a separate species that evolved as predators of humans as a predatory species to justify their racist points of view towards other humans. The problem isn't with Frieren portraying a predator as a predator but with the racist bigots, imho it's ridiculous to expect that fiction censor and sanitize itself so racist bigots can't twist what it is in to support their racist POV. Which is a pretty stupid argument from the get go, like how are you gonna take a work of fiction to justify your treatment of real humans?

PG Modehouse

That's nonsense. "If you can see how metaphor and allegory in a narrative can be used to exclude you, YOU are the problem" No. I'm just experienced at facing discrimination.

Christopher Velasquez

I am absolutely loving this show, the pace, the characters, the world building everything is great! This is one I been wanting to see your reaction for a while Flexie! I'm glad so far you have been in awe of the magic and story as well.

Gabriel Souza

Anyone who sees real-life people as inferior because of their race is just being stupid and racist, that has nothing to do with Frieren. Demons have always been portrayed as vicious creatures in Western culture, and that comes straight from the Bible. It has literally nothing to do with this nonsense about xenophobia, they’re not even humans, they’re creatures, WTF. I can’t believe some people actually think this way about fantasy stories. Humanity is disappointing, period, the show's writing got nothing to do with it.

PG Modehouse

Fiction as an allegory or a metaphor for real life circumstances is not a new concept in auteurship. It's at the heart of why fiction is popular as an art form, it merits looking deeper at context, subtext, and metatext. There's more than just face value power fantasy. The whole appeal of this series is the reframing of human existential issues by changing the settings and world, and subsequently changing the lens through which they're observed.

Fanuatanu Mamea

Cant tell me that song playing while they were walking in the very beginning didnt sound like the grasslands theme from Valheim

Ilsuk Yang

Yeah, the more they reveal about Himmel, the more you love him. He'll say something shallow and immediately follow that up with something profound and wholesome. Just love what they do with these flashbacks. The flashback with the demon girl is chilling every time I watch it

BulldogB

The best thing about Stark is his ability to just roll with whatever's going on. No idea why he's giving Frieren a shoulder massage, but he'll do it anyway. XD

Alibey Bal

"Where are we going" "Heaven" Flashes to Himmel, which means heaven.

Karatsuki

There were a LOT of people who debated that Frierens rendition of demons equal racism and that this show in general promotes racism which was completely ridiculous but there are still some people who review bomb Frieren for that reason even to this day