And it is quite effective, even the Original Video Author of this is even affected and Many in Twittards try to cancel for saying she's 'racist' against Demons. Listen, they Empathize on Demons on this series. The Other shows Humanize Demons, but in Freiren, they are literally different Species, Not even a same Race.
yes and the anime clearly stated that yet twitter made a twitter and turned it into a racism analogy wich is just dumb. Demons arent even a race in this anime they are an entirely different species.
@@imperialspacemarine1539 Elder Scrolls straight up mocks the "line" between "people" and "monster", given that the First Empire had a minotaur emperor and, until ESIII Morrowind, orcs counted as "monsters". This "line" should be mocked because it is worthless.
@@DarkAdonisVyers ... a monster is not dfined by its outside. Its defined by its inside. That a minotaur was aking just means that he was a great person. The orks thing on the other hand can literally be explained by the fact that people are dicks. The Line between monster and people should not be mocked at all. There is a reason for it. It is important *who* draws the line and *for what purpose* . I want to ask you: what do you call an empathyless, heartless but still inteligent person who commits atrocities for no reason other than "shits and giggles"? What would that person be called? And why would they be called that way? Also just to point out: ES and Frieren are two different fantasy worlds and while still compareable tackled the Idea of "Monster" in two completely different ways. In ES a "Monster" is everything non- or vaguely humanoid with less inteligence or civility than the established races. Its quite literally judging tje book by the cover. Frieren on the other hand took it in the direction of "Monsters may look beastly and menacing but they can also look and think very similar to us. How they do things and how they think makes monsters monsters". Its quite ridiculous to use a differently defined "monster" from an entirely different fantasy world to argue that monsters in frieren shouldnt exist. Its literally comparing apples with oranges.
Not so fun fact: the demon that ate a child doesn’t know what “mom” means, so she must’ve heard it. She probably heard it from the child who was eaten screaming “mom” before dying, and that’s why she also said “mom”. And that’s really dark.
@viktoriyaserebryakov2755 No, the demon said the reason why they say "mom" is because humans get off guard/spare her when she does it. The OP's natural conclusion is "where did they learn it though 😲"
For the first time in *fuckin forever* Demons are actually just Demons. No matter how pretty, alluring, charming, civil, or nice they may seem they are Humanoid Predators. They are Demonic creatures, not just magical humans with minor aesthetic differences like so many more recent series have been making them. That is such a breath of fresh air, because as much as I like Misfit at Demon King Academy they just don't look like demons.
exactly. The trope subversion of demons having empathy is so goddamn overused in fiction that it became the new conventional trope. And now that a show the provides the olden actual trope of demons, it becomes an outlier.
The Demons in Frieren are not that demonic if you ask me. The original meaning for the term Demon translated only to _"evil spirit"_ but the Demons in Frieren are not evil. They are... *'natural psychopaths'* and later on in the series, ironically, a Demon called Solitär compares Demons to Elves, Dwarfs & Humans with two other animals which perfectly match the description. A Demon is a shark. And the other species, are Dolphins. Sharks are much more bestial, have less empathy and group-think and just look for anything that allows them to live a littler longer. And if that be just by a Human corpse they can eat. It is not like they are that focussed on killing Humans. Its just what makes sense in their solely on survival programmed minds. If you think closely about it the only reason Demons do not extinct their own species all by themself is their inability to truly profit from killing each other. As when a Demon dies they disolve into mana and therefore the weaker Demons are safe. As subjugated underlings who know their place of course. Which also makes a lot of sense for them. Demons aren't evil. They are just very primitive for the most part. Often too much so to truly comprehend the non-Demonic humanoids. Which in turn brings forth the tragedys. Handling your speaking Raptor can be dangerous after all.
@@jayzenstyle Demon is a subjective thing, demons are only bad in two religions....is everyone in the world forced to write christian and Muslim stories? 33% of the world is not christian nor Muslim.
@@Dianruakrhakakks those other cultures technically do not call them demons. They're otherwise called as spirits, fae, djinn, youkai, etc. which can be referred to as 'demons' but in the literal definition of the word they do not exactly match. It literally means "evil spirit".
Short answer: The difference between Frieren and demons is that though both don't (initially) understand humans, Frieren does not actively kill humans and/or consciously causes them harm. Long answer below the cut: There's also an interesting detail about the nameless demon child killing the chief and kidnapping his kid as "a replacement for the child she killed": Remember before being taken in she'd killed a little kid and the parents were constantly glaring at her for as long as she lived there. Since she was spared by the hero party and taken in by the chief, she recognized the parents of the dead child as the only remaining threat to her safety. By that point she somewhat understood that killing kids was a no-no for humans, and (assuming she was honest about this) she said she wanted to live in peace, so what was the solution? She killed an adult instead. An adult who had a child of similar age to the one who died before, so that the family could take the new orphan in and hopefully stop hating her. It's a very metodical, even simple line of thought: "You hate me for breaking X, so I got a new X for you." She also realized that, from how the grieving parents reacted, killing the chief was a bad decision. But she didn't understand *why*, and it wasn't an act she could undo. Other demons displayed different emotions too, as mentioned in the video: Aura was terrified of dying. Qual was bewildered at Frieren and Fern using his own spell against him. Draht had a rather sadistic hint of joy in his face while he still thought killing Frieren would be easy. Lugner was shocked at Linie's defeat/death, and then outraged at Fern and Frieren hiding their mana. So it's not that demons lack emotions. It's just that those emotions don't weigh much on their actions and the way they understand the world around them is intrinsically different to how a human would. The difference clashes so bad against human values that even the smartest demons/kinder humans struggle to fully understand the other side, no matter how hard they try. Those who read the manga can attest, some demons *do try*, but they still fail nonetheless. Edit: Grammar & cohesion.
I think the child mere appearance in the story disproves theory of demons having emotions Aura, Draht, lugner and rest were older demons that got to know how human emotions work and mimic them to extent (propably by killing and observing humans) This is why i think Aura's panic wasn't geniuine emotion, It's just her still being "in the role" It's faking it until you make it. When Freiren asked flamme how long should she supress her mana to fool demons Flamme simply said "Whole life" Demons do exactly that. They fake their emotions for life to fool humans, they are used to mimicking emotions that they display them even when it dosen't bring them any benefit. Sorry for replying for a month old comment, but i hope someone will read it ^^
@ofal5124 no need to apologise, I've replied to years-old comments before where the OPs replied just as if the commend was 1-day-old. If people don't want to reply to old comments, they just won't - either way you're fine. Either way, I've always seen the younger demons as the proof that demons *do* have emotions, simply because what they say/how they act makes sense compared to human children: they're more impulsive, and have an underdevelopped social filter, and therefore they're more honest if compared to the older demons where everything should be taken with a grain of salt. Aura and Qual are definitely old (500~ years old), and Lugner isn't too far behind, but Draht and Linie and the unnamed demon child are younger (Drath is called a kid/young by Lugner at some point, Linie was a toddler during Himmel's time, the child was a child until she died). It could go either way at this point, so I see both views on demons as valid. The only way to know for sure which is right would be asking the author.
@@ofal5124 no need to apologise, I've replied to years-old comments before where the OPs replied just as if the commend was 1-day-old. If people don't want to reply to old comments, they just won't - either way you're fine. Either way, I've always seen the younger demons as the proof that demons do have emotions, simply because what they say/how they act makes sense compared to human children: they're more impulsive, and have an underdevelopped social filter, and therefore they're more honest if compared to the older demons where everything should be taken with a grain of salt. Aura and Qual are definitely old (500+ years old), and Lugner isn't too far behind, but Draht and Linie and the unnamed demon child are younger (Drath is called a kid/young by Lugner at some point, Linie was a toddler during Himmel's time, the child was a child until she died). It could go either way at this point, so I see both views on demons as valid. The only way to know for sure which is right would be asking the author. (Sorry if you're seeing this text twice. TH-cam glitched and isn't showing me my first reply.)
@@ofal5124 honestly, this comment (and similar ones) really afraid me. people are just easily manipulated by just a few words and "truth", it really shows how easy it is for people to dehumanize and despise beings that don't "fit in" into their perception of the world (a very anthropocentric one btw) when we have actual non humans living (or existing) amongst us, i believe that this dangerous rethoric will be exploited and used to justify genocide.
@@Yuki_Seraphim You are overthinking it. Story so far portrayed demons as exclusivly evil race, that is enemy of other sentient races by their nature. They are evil and serve their role as narrative device, just like Jack horner from puss in boots. so im sorry if eating humans dosen't fit in my perception of the world. but I feel offended that you even assume I could get "manipulated" into hating some potential sentient non-human lifeforms
The contrast between the child demon and the adult demons is the biggest gave away here, imo. The child demon is more robot like, while the adults that are hundreds of years old has better human-like reactions, expressing pain and whatnot. Imagine the child demon in Aura's situation, would the kid have shed tears when it can't even mimic the expression of pain yet? Is it the demon getting better at copying humans or is it the demon becoming human because they ate too much human meat over 500 years? But lets also remember, Frieren herself is more than a thousand years old. Her bored expression watching Himmel and the others get tricked and cold demeanor when slaying demons is a product of thousand years of watching gamers preorder broken video games.
As pointed out in this exact video, that contrast doesn't actually make any sense because Aura had no reason to express pain or fear other than genuinely feeling it. Frieren didn't care about her, and wasn't looking at her. The only logical explanation for her actions was that she genuinely feared death and wanted to live, but was being killed.
@@YumLemmingKebabs Those tears are the same as the child saying "mama" again and again before taking the final hit from frieren. It has no reason to say then and it's still not genuinely looking for it's mama. That people feel bad for aura just cause of those tears, you just know that the demons are doing a great job at tricking people. Imagine if these kinds of demons exist in the real world and are in social media right now. You will be one of the people that will defend them.
@@belldrop7365 As was explicitly pointed out in the video you supposedly just watched and by me just now. No they aren't the same as the child saying "Mom." No one was looking at her, she knew Frieren wasn't going to show mercy. There was no point in crying except for her own emotional reaction to being killed. Also, what is even the point of that last paragraph? lol The kinds of people you're talking about don't actually exist IRL, except in the paranoid imaginations of fascists.
@@YumLemmingKebabs The point of the last paragraph is to zoom in the point that the viewers/readers are human too and subject to the very same guile demons use unto the characters. An emotion outcry or if (chance of survival = 0) tear ducts = 1 else mama = 1
I don't know if it's been mentioned in the anime yet but the lack of empathy part boils down to biological differences, kinda like how a pitcher plant would not feel empathy towards the insects they lure and trap. But im pretty sure its been mentioned that they evolved starting as monsters that learned how to parrot the word "help" in the dark to lure humans like a pitcher plant evolved luring in insects using nectar. Luckily there is an arc in frieren that will tackle demons ability to coexist and if thats actually possible but I just find it funny that twitter people start to question the morality of killing demons once they look a lot more like cute anime girls regardless of the fact that they are surrounded in decapitated bodies they enslaved and have them serve till their corpses decayed.
I think a good Example for something similar to this is the game "Prey" from Arcane in 2017. The Alien lifeforms, the Typhon, are intelligent yet there is no way to communicate or reason with them. They only kill humans, not even out of malice, they just do, they don't even "see" humans as humans or living beings they don't recognise us as something similar to them, and a reason why is because they Lack mirror neurons, which specifically allow us to have Empathy with another living being. It's a bit more complicated than just that, but I think the Story of Prey is worth having a Look at when trying to understand the demon problem in Frieren.
She received a spoonful of her own medicine, Frieren just kill her in the same way that she killed all those warriors, forcing them to behead themselfs. (and Twitter isn't even a reflexion of the real world, just a shadow).
@@TheRealJohnux That is one hell of a good example and it is as I rationalized the situation, however it seems that the demons are developing some degree of sensibility and even empaty which can be found in their "sense of honor and pride" and are able to recognize humans as sensible beings and even form some sort of families (you can argue the three demons which worked so close together were a sort of family). However they are still far from feeling any empathy, they are half way between your example and a being capable of empaty like a human, however even humans are able to turn off any resemblance of empaty even at dealing with our own kind so you can't expect more from a literal alien like the demons in this anime, I think Frieren's approach is valid kill them until the demons prove that are something else than a dangerous predator.
@UI_Marx I am certainly not defending them. I'm just trying to figure out how they function and not just rely on Frieren's words on it. How much of what they say or do is deception and how much is them being genuine. They are clearly capable of autonomy, intelligent thought, and communication beyond mimicry, so i don't think I'd class them as beast since they pretty much have all the qualities of intelligent life, besides empathy.
@@RoamingTrend exactly like Aura actually, much like it was shown of the little girl demon in the flash back who called out "mother" in order to fool human, Aura is mimicking human begging for their life as a response to getting cornered, most likely how she got away from the hero 80 so years ago lol
9:18 - she's not bored, she's resigned. Because *she*, but *only she* knows what's going to happen next, but because everyone was set on ignoring her, she is just waiting for them to learn the lesson the hard way. Plus maybe 1% curiosity that maybe this might be an exception to the universal rule she knows.
3:00 What you mean We didn't feel much for Qual? He was a great genius magical inventor and despite his bestial look he had quite a calm conversation with Frieren before his final fight, his annihilation is a great loss, not only did he invent Zoltraak, but he instantly started analyzing the new defensive spells developed against it!
for Qual, its less about feeling bad for his death, but more respect for how smart he was. He was still a monster that had to die, but one can still respect him for his genius regardless.
The main difference between Demons and Frieren, and Elves by extension, is that we are not in a Predator-Prey conflict. In the context of the series, Demons may be considered some big predators, but elves... are more like a big herbivore, powerful enough to be considered a menace to them and us. But as we do not place any danger or place in their food chain which is why it makes sense that they show this indifference towards humans because, probably, during their heyday elves could go their quite lengthy lifespan and never need to get in contact with a human so their society developed with different values than us but at the same time no animosity
Elves aren't herbivores at all in this anime . Frieren eats more meat than literal heavyweight fighters 😂. But whatever you said is true. Elves aren't looking to kill humans just because, or trying to wipe them out .
Elves aren't herbivores at all in this anime . Frieren eats more meat than literal heavyweight fighters 😂. But whatever you said is true. Elves aren't looking to kill humans just because, or trying to wipe them out .
Aura isn’t evidence of anything, because most creatures will react to dying. That and Aura is dying to her own pride, which is basically her eating crow. Frieren has been doing this for a long time, and she knows that Aura has been beheading people for a long time. To put it bluntly it’s hard to feel bad someone you know has been lopping heads off left, right and centre. That’s most of the issue with feeling for the demons, because we’ve seen it backfire. The little girl is pretty much the key example; she looked happy there, but didn’t compute how to live among humans. It’s not they don’t emote, but their emotional and logical reasoning is not the same. The difference is that Freiren is that she can be reasoned with, she did let the demon child try to live. She’s able to reflect and the entire premise is regret, and loss.
The point isn't that Aura didn't need to die, it's that Aura is not a beep boop robot that lives only to lie and kill and has no brain in her head. A demon doesn't feel or even understand all the emotions that humans possess, but they do feel fear, survival instincts, pride, moral outrage (even if it's outrage at something humans don't care about), curiosity, confusion, contempt, anger and so on. They even seem to feel happiness. They're smart enough to talk to, but beyond a basic statement of facts (the sky is blue, cats eat mice, if you shape mana like this it makes a fireball) the conversation will inevitably fail for reasons the demon can't control. The reason they have to die isn't because they're literal demons from hell that only exist to make others suffer but rather that the values and minds they possess make them incompatible with human civilization. Which is a little tragic: It's a thinking feeling being, but there can never be anything but conflict. Demons didn't CHOOSE to be what they are, so wiping them out is a bit of dirty business. Necessary, but unsavory. Basically, don't feel bad for Aura. Feel bad that Aura could never be anything better than Aura, even if she tried.
The difference between Frieren and Demons is that Frieren has empathy, in no moment is this clearer than when she realized that she had been wasting time that humans don't have much of and missed out on knowing a person who managed to know her in less than one one-hundredth of her life. She balls her eyes out like a child, and I can feel for her, my grandmother didn't live far into my childhood and when she left I balled my eyes out for the same reason... I, in a childish way had taken her presence for granted and hadn't bothered to know her while she was alive, only learning more about her from those who are left to remember her. Demons in Frieren have no such empathy and are thus in some sense not deserving of our empathy. Tough we can pity them with our capacity for sympathy.
@@pushqrdx True, we can even see in her encounter with Aura that she tests Aura's capacity for empathy and doesn't even get sympathy in return. Frieren entertains the thought that she might be wrong about demons before she KYS's that demon's ass.
@@NameHolderEQ There is a type of pity that doesn't fall prey to their machinations. It's the pity of how they're eternally bound to their lesser monster nature. We may pity the majestic lion's need to hunt, but we don't fear it less... it is a predator after all.
@@RoamingTrend Comparing people to demons just because they look similar is ridiculous. They are escentially walking human form mimics. No remorse should be had when dispatching them, they have none for humans.
@RoamingTrend Yes, one side is literal demons that deserve to be annihilated. Though if you are a nihilistic bug man, of course it's all the same to you. Morality, right and wrong, are alien concepts to you.
9:20 Frieren's expression here appears in my opinion as "I know what you are, I'll sit this out, you haven't hurt anyone yet but I've seen how this plays out already". She has seen situations like this before likely and she's stoic about it but I'm sure she has no faith in the demon not causing harm eventually.
She has enough emotional intelligence to know that if she goes after the demon girl before it does anything, she will be seen as the one in the wrong. So she waits to let the humans experience the consequences of their actions, not out of pettiness, but out of necessity. And with how long her species lives, that waiting time was nothing. And perhaps in a very very small corner of her heart, she was holding out a sliver of hope that this demon could be different. Basically wishful thinking.
She definitely also used that situation as an example to teach her party as well as the rest of the village the consequences of even having the thought of empathising with a demon like “See? this is what happens when you have the if we kill them will be no better than them mentality, it will only get you and others killed”.
@@andrewsanusi8462 It's not the "if we killed them we wouldn't be better than them" mentality that was the issue. Notice that before the demon say "mama" Himmel was ready to cut her with his sword, so he didn't necessarily have a problem with murder. Their problem is the belief that demon can change and defy their nature. The belief that just because demon can talk that we can understand eachother. The lesson they learn is "even if a demon looked like child, acted like a child, and WAS a child, it's still gonna kill people and there was no redeeming it, even if it wanted to be redeemed." Case in point, the demon killed the village head and wanted to give his daughter to the family of the child that she killed with the intention to get along with the villagers.
I think she's lived long enough to know when to step aside and let people learn with their own blood the knowledge they dont want to accept from a 1000+ y.o., she just hung around because you need a spell to kill demons (i think the anime meant it like that), and she personally dont mind sticking around; maybe was wondering if this little experiment would bring results (willing humans and willing demon trying to disprove the general notion that demons are pure manipulators looking out for themselves only), but as long as it lasted, it only cemented her own knowledge to be true: demons cant keep good relationships out of cooperation or good will, they are indeed the ultimate sociopaths and psychopaths and killing has little more trouble or purpose than allowing themselves to remain alive longer
As fact a demons are also one of main reasons why Elves are going extinct. Elf are one of oldest sentient races in this world and also very powerful. After demons gained intelligence and started to form organized structures they begun from elimination of largest treat. And because Elves realized too late that demons are treat their civilization was wiped out and all remaining Elves are just remnants without means to restore their race.
They are idiots serie could easily get knocked up by eld survivors and rebuild the race instead she decides to lead and lent out spell tomes to humans that will only last 100 years or likely less.
@@sebas8225 Well the thing is, humans can never catch up to longer lived races because they are comparatively short lived but humans also increase in ability and accomplish things at a much faster rate.
Well, there's still Frieren and Kraft at least, so there is a way to get more purebred elves. And depending on compatibility, half-elves might be possible too.
Frieren has one big, key difference from the demons she kills: she does not seek to kill demons. She spent a thousand years holed up in a hermit shack, living a peaceful existence, until Himmel showed up and pulled her into the fight against the Demon Lord. Every single encounter we see wit demons, they are the instigators and aggressors. Demons are always the ones who draw first blood I every encounter, and always are shown seeking to destroy humanity wherever they can. Frieren may be just as vicious and isolationist as the demons, but she is nowhere near as bloodthirsty. And that is the crucial line the series draws.
That's the thing. Demons may kill without mercy, but they are not malicious. Macht kills others even though he was ordered to not bear malice towards others. Demons don't feel empathy, but they also don't feel malice or even sadism.
Infiltration of a city, under the guise of establishing peace, with the explicit intention of bringing down the city's defenses, in order to kill and/or eat everyone in it, simply because they can, and want to, is the definition of malicious. Heck, Lugner even deliberately chooses not to 1-shot Fern out of a malicious sense of pride and wanting to see her in pain. Malice doesn't require something as cruel as torture to be considered malicious.
Frieren also has what demons completely lack; empathy. She kills without mercy, because she has learned the hard way and seen several times where not doing that leads to.
Without really spoiling anything, the longest arc in the Frieren manga explores this topic very broadly and gives us a much better insight to how demons operate. They bring up topics such as convergent evolution--wherein demons evolved from looking like monsters like Qual to more humanoid shapes because it was evolutionary advantageous for them to do so--as well as their inborn psychopathy--that, if they had the ability to feel empathy for their prey, they would go extinct. It's the best arc in the manga but unfortunately will not be covered within this first 28 episode season. I hope it is animated one day because it is a fantastic arc with very memorable and well-written antagonists.
I don’t feel like there’s that much to it, yes it’s a narrative choice to portray an entire group of beings as evil, no different from the goblins in Goblin Slayer; but so long as they’re always antagonistic, there’s no sense in differentiating or sympathizing w/ them w/ their intelligence, personality, origin story etc. there should at least be demons in conflict w/ one another otherwise how would there ever have been a Demon Lord?
You mean the El Dorado one, no? Ngl. it felt kinda exhausting to me at times but I gotta agree that Macht and the whole scenario was very well written.
@AzureRook That is part of what makes them intrigguing, the way you are treating them is very human. You see even this early on, and even more later, that they don't think like us and conflict is easily solve trought a by desmostrotong their superiority, not unlike lions or wolf or other pack and/or territorial animals. It is not in their nature to add a whole other layer of personal fealings to their conflicts. They are shown persuing their personal interest and obsecions above almost anything else but only as along as it doesn't threaten their survival.
@@CanizalesAJ sure they seem individualistic in how they pursue their own interests but then what make them more evil/dangerous than elves? If they also have a power hierarchy like humans why wouldn’t similarly strong demons compete w/ each other? I feel like it’s just a shortcoming of the author to not have more meaningful conflict around demons because some writing troupes are unavoidable; why make [insert fantasy race here] different if they’re not relatable/understandable in some way? unless being completely alien was the point all along
I think the read on a bored expression on the Friren's face, when she looks at the demon girl go about her business, says: "I've seen that a dozen times. It's only a matter of time until it ends badly"
My empathy for monsters in fantasy stops when it's in their nature to kill indiscriminately. They may have a desire to live, but they have an equal desire to kill. I also can't feel sorry for a species that weaponizes empathy. The demons are shown time and again to have been given a second chance, and they only use that to kill. There is a distinct difference between demons and elves/dwarfs/humans in fantasy. The elves/dwarfs/humans all coexist with empathy (there is always conflict, that's just normal). But demons have been shown to not be capable of empathy or coexistence. I guess it's a credit to the writer that you feel so sorry for demons begging for their lives. They do that to garner mercy so they can strike again later.
I find it hilarious how almost no one decided to have this debate with goblins in goblin slayer, despite the show making clear thst maybe a "good" goblin was a possibility , but not one that was worth the risk
@@elisehalflight... so you find it hilarious that no one will scavange for food in a putrid cesspit, despite the possibility of actually being food in there? That's the point, there *CAN* be good goblins, but you won't find them with the ones that GS usually fights. Hell, there is an ambiguity in the anime (not manga/ln) that the Rhea that taught smol GS to be a goblin, as he most certainly looks the part.
@@TheKueiJin I find it hilarious that everyone is so concerned about the demons and not the goblins despite both being an existential threat beyond reasoning in their respective works, and I am pretty sure that is in great part because the demons are charismatic.
Frieren is NOT like the demons, if we compare them both want something, demons power and frieren spells, frieren would never hurt anyone for to archive her goals, she dosent even overpowers the guards when she gets pinned not even infront of the thing she hates the most. Demons are unfelling and Freiren is desensitized, having hempaty for them is the human reaction and is exactly what they exploit, it speaks better of freiren showing her determination, resolution and how she is really wise.
Yeah that's my biggest gripe about this video is that he compares Frieren to demons. they are not equal in any way really. I can see his points on not enjoying things being killed. But Frieren is not a mindless demon only killing for her goals.
3:07 hmm, nope. Nothing at all. The demons themselves explained what their nature is, and we don't only see them in the perspective of Frieren, the village flashback showed us that even Himmel (The most kind, gentle, understanding, sympathetic human we've seen) learns and understands this concept since he experienced it first hand with the demon that ATE THE LITTLE GIRL and only mimicked human behavior to extend her own life.
In Oblivion, there is a Daedric quest where you kill the leaders of 2 prominent families in a particular town and frame the other family, so that the 2 families will kill each other. Why are you doing this? Free sword, of course. Oh, and so long as you're not caught doing this, you get fame for this quest, not infamy. "ATE THE LITTLE GIRL" Only one? That's certainly less than half the town, I believe.
The people who feel bad here is because Aura is a cute anime demon girl. Why didn't these same people feel bad for Qual? Poor guy was sealed for 80 years and was killed within minutes of breaking the seal. Aura had been terrorizing the borders and desecrating corpses for 29 years
Honestly I just enjoy the display of power. Even if both were human that wouldn't change. In the case when both sides willingly engage in a battle to the death there appears a brutal honesty in their interactions. It is no longer a question of morality only of ability.
The problem is, actual psychopaths are not all serial killers. They lacks of empathy, but they can understand concepts of ethics, and adapt to society. I once see a diagnosed phycopath guy describing himself as a grown up peter pan. There are no long-term goal, no ambition for him, but he says that he chase his pleasure like watching movies after seeing a cool trailer or buying a nice shiny car. His job is a tool for that, Happiness is just a word for him. And if demons are same as that, then they could accept Epicureanism*, humankind and demons can coexist. *Epicurus sees that the goal of life is avoding pain and being happy. But it does not mean 'Drink, f*@k, kill whatever you want'. This will make a debt so you will more suffer later. So you have to learn the balance. Just consume what you need so body will not be in pain. Be calm and meditate so your sprit will not be in pain. If you learn the balance and have happy life, sometimes you can enjoy luxuries but turn back to your routine. Of course the problem is luxuries to demon meaning killing and eating more people, but if they live that long, well The war of humans will be their party.
You have to keep in mind some details are lost in translation. For example, the very well-defined separation between "mamono" (monsters) and "mazoku" (demons). There are actually many terms to signify monsters and demons in Japanese, but this show is very consistent in that demons are always mazoku, and monsters are always mamono, and they are two very different set of creatures. Mazoku are humanoid and can speak human language. Mamono can have many forms, be it animal-like or vegetable-like or even humanoid, but they can't speak human language. That's a particular trait unique to mazoku so that's how you know we're dealing with a demon rather than a monster. Because the translation is not always accurate, there have been some cases where monsters are called demons or the other way around. That might make viewers believe monsters and demons are basically the same thing when that's actually not the case at all. In fact, some enemies you yourself called demons in this video are actually just monsters. Anyway, the point is, always keep in mind that demons and monster are totally different things, and that what defines demons the most and sets them apart from monsters is their ability to speak human language. As for the topic of the video, demons are pretty complex creatures. Yes, they don't only speak to deceive humans. That was a mistranslation too (there are many mistranslations in this show). But that's not really important. What's important is that they're brains are just different from humans, so there are emotions they simply can not feel. Not all emotions, obviously, just some of them, but unfortunately, the emotions they lack are exactly the ones they would need to be able to coexist with humans, like empathy or remorse/guilt. They can kill children and won't feel anything at all. Also, while they are intelligent creatures, they do have an strong instinctive impulse to kill humans. They might be able to hold back for a while, but eventually they will kill. They just can't suppress that urge forever. They are ultimately very tragic creatures.
In the manga it is mentioned that demons cannot really feel feelings and if they do they are too weak to even notice them (spoiler alert) later a demon who believed in coexistence between humans and demons and that his goal was to be able to feel anyone emotion (this ended up making him one of the greatest threats to humanity) and ended up dying without having been able to feel anything.
I would say the difference is in direction. Frieren learned to be cold and antagonistic towards demons through experience, while demons are born that way. And when not around demons frieren does display genuine empathy.
Good observation. I was simply puzzled what would make Frieren morally superior to a demon, especially from a demons perspective. They both lack empathy towards one another, both are willing to deceive and only to seek to destroy one another. 😀 there is nothing wrong with that in an existential conflict, you kill the other so it doesn't kill you.
@@RoamingTrendif you watch eps 10 of the series (told by flamme the legendary mage), you'll remember some important points about the demons world, it's an unforgiving world for demons with little mana (means weak demons), so from the wording its clear that demons are cruel and devilish even to its kind, of course that's not the case with frieren and elven race (if you read the manga you'll understand further).
@@RoamingTrendbut think about it this way. Demons want to pretend to make amends to humans through peace but yet to them humans are nothing but food and they know that humans will react greatly if they are encountering a demon. Presenting themselves as humans with horns not only will make people hesitate in killing them but you will empathize with them. A smart later on in the manga will confirm that demons do in fact not feel any emotion asides getting their pride torn to pieces that's why they are angry. Their mana is their pride and them losing is like dying that's why aura cried before dying. That's why johan 2.0 was so angry after being bested by mere disciples that are talented. They hate things that bests their efforts to rise in greatness. Like geniuses and prodigies. I mean johan 2.0 keeps on yapping about it too
What gives Frieren the moral high ground ? Here's my answer to that. A key difference between the demons and Frieren is that, unlike the demons, she doesn't go out of her way to hurt others. She didn't mind spending centuries minding her own business before Himmel and his party arrived at her shack. Unlike the demons, she doesn't see the humans she interacts with as being prey. She's aloof around the humans she travels with, but she cares about them. She's just clueless about the best way to show how she really feels. Having empathy is an essential part of human hature, but there is a catch: if you're not careful, your empathy will be used against you. This is what demons do in Frieren's setting. In the real world, this something psychopaths and sociopaths do whenever they can. In fact, sociopaths and psychopaths are "defective" humans who not only have no empathy for others but also can't feel strong emotions, except for one: fear. Aura's reaction when she realizes she lost to Frieren and is about to die is very similar to how real life sociopaths react when faced with the fact that they're about to die. They get desperate and emotional because the only thing they care about, which is themselves, is about to be destroyed.
Meanwhile, in Elder Scrolls, the Dark Brotherhood is one of the most rewarding joinable guilds. "Have you not heard of the Dark Brotherhood? Of the _remorseless_ guild of paid assassins and _homicidal_ cutthroats? Join us, and you'll find the Dark Brotherhood to be all that, and so much more. We are, more than anything, a union of like-minded individuals. We _kill for profit, for enjoyment, and for the glory_ of the Dread Father, Sithis. We are family, with bonds forged in blood and death."
I think they are more like narcissists. About Frieren moral ground. She interacts with humans, but not with demons. She just kills them out of self preservation. They do the same most of the time. If I was a human there I'd be thankful, but just because it benefits me
@@RoamingTrend not when experience has taught you, time and again, without exception, later proven right, that the only reason they do this is, in fact to undermine and expose a civilian population to untold horrors. Then, it's only prevention.
@@RoamingTrend There is a difference between a person who kicks off a racoon that has bitten it multiple times before and a person who sees a racoon for the first time, then randomly kicks it. Frieren's aggression is from experience, Demon aggresion is pure malice
4:41 Precisely, that's the problem with your approach. Demons aren't a humanoid race, they're monsters that have taken on a human appearance. And it's this nuance in particular that makes all the difference. Aura isn't crying because she's afraid of dying, but because as a being made of pure individualism, her ego has taken a blow. Frieren deceived her and forced her to kill herself (something she used to do to the people she killed, by the way). Demons can feign empathy but not modesty, because that's how their hierarchy works. It's just the strongest's law. And in addition to their unabashed individualism, they have overinflated egos. Not having empathy for them doesn't make you inhuman, but it does make you someone who knows what he's dealing with.
why cant she be also afraid of dying? every animal on this planet is afraid of dying and will avoid it. And as described in manga - Demons are evolved monsters - another species, not a magical lifeform. because, if they wouldn’t be afraid of dying they wouldn’t have a “follow the stongest” instinct.
Oh no, she's afraid of death, every living creature is. In humans people with severe APD are exactly like her, they are the center of their universe and everyone else is just an object to be used. But they can certainly feel fear and sadness for themselves.
to add. even predators have survival and self preservation instincts. aura is what happens when said monster/predator is sentient/self aware and can voice that instinct out (fear of death related to said survival instinct)
Every significant demon we see so far shows a somewhat melancholic feeling when they're dying. Still, while they feel scared and sad when dying, they can't realize / aware this is how their victims felt
Demons definitely are a humanoid race. I mean... just look at them, they look very human. And that's what defines a humanoid race: A non-human race that has human characteristics (like walking upright). However, it is a human "flaw" (at least in this case) that we automatically attribute human characteristics to humanoid things. It's very easy (as this video shows) to accidentally attribute things like empathy or morality (any system of morality, not just general human one) to humanoid or intelligent races. Trend says that he's not a fan of dehumanization. And while I feel the same, he forgets an important thing: Demon's aren't human. He sees a humaniod race, projects human attributes to them and is then disturbed when human social norms/morality aren't applied to them. They were not dehumanized, because they were never human to begin with. And I want to highlight your thought, that the worst thing that happened to aura (or at least might have been) was the blow to her ego. While to us humans, Frieren's way of extermination seems excessively cruel, it might have been the more "moral" option in Aura's moral system. While Frieren did the extremely immoral thing of hiding her mana, she at least had the decency to make Aura kill herself, making it clear to everyone what happened. It might be more immoral to not use her position of power and instead resort to a much simpler, less dignified method of execution.
3:21 "Who is she trying to deceive anyways" Allow me to present the concept of "Shapeshifter's swan song", is a trope when a shapeshifter is about to die to turn into everything to try and find a way out, you can find an example in terminator 2. In the same way Demons may be trying to use anything at their disposal to try and survive, is not logical move, is a desperation move, in the hopes it may save them in some way. 9:18 she is waiting the inevitable conclusion. What makes Frieren different from Demons? Demons left alone will search humans to kill them. Look at Aura, she could have lived without that city, Demons don't need to kill humans, so going there and devicing the whole plan to lower the barrier is just a pointless effort to kill humans, again something they don't need to do for survival. Frieren left alone will live 1000 years in a forest doing barely anything. RIght now Frieren is not moving around with the goal to kill all Demons, she goes to places she knows there is a problem that will arise soon (Quaal, Sword village) so she can clean up before there is victims, or target demons she finds in the way, but not going out of her way to find them. I'm sure if Demons stop killing humans and lived in their own corner of the world most humans wouldn't care, kinda like how we know there is dangerous animals across the world but they aren't a danger to normal people. But since they are an imminent danger that will seek them out, they need to be dealt with. Demons have emotions, that is not a question, but have a blue and orange morality, the have no concept of good and bad as humans, they cannot comprehend humans, they only have a might makes right mentality, and they all consider humans to be weaker.
exactly, they are not just beeings . . . they are predators, as you said, aura could have lived, hell they even let her live once so she already had her second chance.
No she was just afraid of her own death. She can be a cold and heartless monster, while having felling's for her own being. Daemons do have emotions just no empathy. The can feel good or bad depending on their personal wellbeing.
Ah, true. I guess I only subconciously recorgnized that. In John Carpenter's: The Thing, The Thing's last form is a pillar of flesh with tentacles, arms, a dog body, and a malformed human face with alien jaws coming out of the side of it. While previously it tried to remain as individual "identities".
The show doesn't seek to make Frieren human. In fact, it goes to great lengths to show she isn't human. Yet you're trying to imply that someone who can outlive the entire world seeing patterns and trying to stop unnecessary bloodshed is somehow wrong to do so. She's easily persuaded not to do the things she wants to. She's not disagreeable. She simply does what she feels she must, and what the story shows is consistently necessary
I certainly hope I didn't imply that. I don't think I even made any of those arguments. One of my comments was that frieren and demons understand the nature of this war while humans are still applying their ideology, which is why they keep getting tricked.
@@RoamingTrend How Frieren is different from demons? She threat Fern and Stark not as her subjects, minions or whatever, but as her family (while demons have no such concept)
@@RoamingTrend "I certainly hope I didn't imply that." You certainly did and said so at 13:16 Now I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this was merely an analogy to show that more is at play here but since you never discredited this notion I can see why many a viewer would think you think of Frieren the same as a demon 🤣
@@BrutusAlbion this is just nitpicking at this point. The video clearly states how Frieren differentiates from the demons, especially in the emotional state that demons are inherently self centered with their preservation, whilst elves tend to be indifferent to their existence as a whole. he made a whole point about this. If viewers didn't get that part, they weren paying attention imho. That's the main difference that is thrown around in the series a lot. The video also explains why demons showcase their mana all the time to intimidate other demons. Other demons either submit to the powerful one or perish if seeking conflict. There is no negotiation, there is no mercy, because there is no sympathy for others. The only times demons are shown to be emotionally concerned is when their life is at stake. Aura didn't cry because she seeks sympathy, she cries out because her death is imminent. Demons take pride in power, which is why Lügner was angry at someone hiding their power - it's against their nature. It's why Aura is acting smug with Frieren, because she knows that Frieren is rumored to be strong and she sees herself validated by the fact that she is stronger, due to their mana. We could also interpret Auras fear at the moment of her death not as fear from being killed but pain from the misconception of her own power, the flaw in her very existence - that her pride was misguided. Therefore she might dread the fact, that she wasn't powerful. Because demons seem to get - what we would call - emotional to some extend when their power is undermined or questioned.
@@RoamingTrend then you need to learn to form words better dude, to me it looked like you LITERALLY EQUATED elves with demons based just on their lack of emotions, while ignoring little facts like devouring humans as part of demon diet.
"How exactly is Frieren different from demons" - She genuinely cares about those around her. She comforted Fern when she was sick, she cooked steaks for Starks birthday, heck the reason she's on the adventure in the first place is because she regrets not getting to truly know Himmel. The demons in Frieren wouldn't be able to understand any of these actions and decisions because they fundamentally can't. Every action that the demons take that would garner sympathy for them are copied, Lügner copied Graf, Aura copied the soldiers she made commit self-die, and the demon child copied the child they ate. They only copied these actions because it would preserve their own life, not because they truly were grieving or afraid.
The difference between Frieren and the demons is that she doesn't have the desire to eat people. Which is a pretty big distinction. Now is it possible to educate demons to not do that and survive off something else? Probably, but I personally wouldn't bet on it really working.
Demons see humans as prey. You can't teach a lion or a tiger to not eat prey. You most likely would have to raise a demon from the moment they were born to make them understand that they shouldn't deceive or eat humans.
@lisboah Yup, pretty much what I'm thinking. Even domesticated pets like dogs and cats still have that instinct to eat their prey. Heck, not too long ago, I saw a couple of dogs attempting to eat a barely born colt.
@@lisboah Macht had the desire to kill and eat humans under control and even liked them, but his desire to learn human emotional concepts when combined with his lack of a moral compass and no aversion to killing lead him to still do unspeakable things in pursuit of that goal.
From what I recall they don't even actually need to eat humans, but since they see them as prey and lesser than them they do so anyway. So yeah I don't see any way to teach one not to eat humans, even if they don't they'll commit atrocities elsewhere. It's simply in their nature.
Demons speak primarily to deceive humans. That's a fact. That's the main reason they're gifted with speech. That said, when demons' pride is challenged and they don't understand something, they may do something other than deceive a human when speaking to them. This doesn't mean, however, that we should empathize with them. Because if you do, they'll find a way to exploit this flaw to deceive you. It's precisely because demons are masters at playing with people's empathy that a character like Frieren will never be fooled by them. Emote even an ounce of empathy towards them and you risk putting your life in danger. It's not worth it, and you'll be putting the people around you in danger too. Demons may be intelligent, but they're similar to the goblins in "Goblin Slayer", hurting humans by instinct when they don't even need it to survive in the first place. They're not a humanoid race as you might think, they're monsters that have naturally taken on human form.
well Goblins need humanoid females to create more offspring, also their instincts push them to expand their territory and consume more (they are pretty similar to humans in this regard but anyways), so they kind of need to hurt humans to survive... But I guess as a human with a healthy degree of empathy to others of my own kind, I think it is justifiable to exterminate goblins in order to protect the human world. I think that beyond the morality of killing or not a sensible being, we have here an clash between species, so it is justifiable to me that if demons attack my kind without any other motive than total extermination or domination, we should exterminate them all, until demons evol in a form that understand that not harming humans is the way to go, they learn to speak they will learn to coexist or be exterminated if not. XD
Have you read the manga? Macht is going to be a surprise if you haven't. He genuinely liked humans and wanted to find a way to coexist with them, but his lack of empathy and moral compass led him to do unspeakable "experiments" in pursuit of understanding what human emotional concepts are.
@@atomicskull6405he didn't like humans, he simply despise violence and he is finding a way to end that violence. The problem is... He lacks or simply not capable of having empathy and he died not even understanding how empathy works. The character is tragic really but at the same time engaging.
@@atomicskull6405 Yes, I've read the manga. And Macht doesn't try to understand human feelings because he loves them (which he thinks he does), but simply out of ego, because one day, a priest he killed told him before dying that he didn't understand. And since he doesn't understand human feelings at all, he took it for love when it was just a reflection of his ego which couldn't accept such words from a human.
Not jumping on a hate train or anything, but just to say, "A person having emotions doesn't mean they earn sympathy if the only one they can cry for is themselves", which was exactly the case with Aura.
I honestly like how demons have been portrayed so far in this show. Their behavior reminds me of that tale about the scorpion and the frog. The demon child should have waited until the party left and then it could kill the humans as it pleased. But in the end it couldn't wait and ended up killing the village chief. And due to the lack of empathy, they couldn't even understand why the "peace offering" was rejected. I hope this topic gets explored more in the show.
The funny thing is that its murder of the chief wasn't malicious in nature. It wasn't an evil plot, but solution it thought would smooth things over. A demon's mind is just that alien.
@@CKarasu13it may have been for the best actually, had the demon girl acted too smartly and she would've become a threat, also frieren would never allow such a freak to live alongside humans while she's gone she likely would've persuaded himmel and co to wait a week or two more to see if the demon girl wouldnt slip and then proceed to have her join their adventure. Because to frieren showing to himmel how evil any demon can be is of the outmost importance to her.
Not this season, but in season two the party will encounter plenty of demons as they go North and the subject will be largely explored. It is really well done. If you are curious, you can read the manga. Or wait until the second season :)
3:10 Maybe, because I desensitized from watching a lot of stuff. But for me, its like see a smug serial killer that has been taunt everyone finally getting caught. So I basically feel nothing out of it. 3:50 About the "Their kind uses words only to deceive humans", I think the manga say it better "Words for them is means to deceive humans". Well yeah, sure they use it to communicate to each other still because if not we the audience won't understand what they talking and living being need a way to communicate after all. Plus "Deceive" doesn't mean you can't be honest, demon deceive human that mean in a way they will do anything to deceive them even say some truth to understand the human to deceive them. If someone able to deceive someone by always lying, I believe its not even possible. I think the morality problem can be thrown aside when all demon see every single humankind as "Prey". If we not kill them, they will be the one killing everyone.
You mentioned that Frieren takes demons down "promptly", but there's an important caveat to that: she holds off on killing them as long as they are useful to her (and not hurting anyone else, etc.). Even in the example you gave, with her fighting Draht in the prison cell, she could have chosen to kill Draht at literally any moment after he stepped in. She chose to have a conversation with him and even let him attack her to see if he would reveal any useful information, which he did. Then as soon as he outlived his usefulness, she killed him. The same is true of Qual (using him as a tool for Fern's training) and Aura (Frieren played with the scales like a mana-powered fidget spinner for several minutes before finally launching Minecraft). Fern, whose views on demons are clearly heavily influenced by Frieren, also held off (briefly) on killing Lugner for similar reasons.
She gave Aura the chance to save herself and turn back. Maybe Fieren has more of an eye for an eye way of dispatching demons. You tried to kill me this way so I'm going to kill you in kind. Draht used his hands with wires and Frieren removed them and laid her hands upon him to kill him. Aura, she simply used the scales that Aura was using to try to kill her... Qual, with his magic... omshiroii, desu ne...
@@artboymoy I mean, we know from the flashbacks in Ep. 10 that Frieren declared war on all demonkind after demons killed everyone in her home village. So in a sense, it's "eye for an eye", but not on an individual basis. She's perfectly happy to kill any demon on sight if she doesn't have a use for them. See Ep 7, where she would have killed the demon girl without hesitation if not for Himmel, and where she was 100% ready to vaporize Lugner & co. as soon as she spotted them. Her default stance toward demons is clearly "shoot first, ask questions never". That said, perhaps talking about it with Stark and Fern prompted her to put it to the test once more, because I think you're right that she gave Aura a chance to "repent". It's that moment in Episode 9 when they're talking about Frieren not using flashy spells because Himmel told her not to. And when Aura's response is to disrespect the memory of Himmel because Himmel is already dead, that reaffirms Frieren's conviction to kill Aura (and presumably all demons). Other than Aura, the closest thing to mercy we've ever seen Frieren offer a demon is a "painless death".
3:46 I think you may be taking this a bit too literally. The point of this sentence is to say "Demons will say anything to get what they want, you can't assume they actually mean what they're saying". Hyperbole is a thing and often appears in sayings, proverbs, and lessons. 5:20 I agree that you're supposed to feel bad for the demon here because the ability to make you feel those emotions is the demons' greatest weapon. The true horror of the demon is that it is able to make you feel bad for it. They high-jack our empathy (normally a valuable, healthy mental response) and use it against us. I think the point of the scene is to make you realize just how terrifying this enemy is by highlighting your own emotions. 9:17 I read this expression as resigned. She's a patient person. She's not willing to cause a scene, but she knows that this will end badly and so she's just waiting for the other foot to drop. She's not suspicious because suspicion requires doubt. She's not angry because it's no use getting angry about every little thing. Eventually she will be proven right and she's just waiting to act.
Honestly am I the strange one here? As soon as I was given understanding of where these creatures descend from the idea of empathy was lost and I mostly just pitied them as creatures of instinct who would sabotage themselves.
No you are correct, from what we are shown so far they are exactly as described - monsters optimized for tricking and killing humans. It is only because of their appearance that there is even a question, if they were all monstrous/evil looking like the earlier examples nobody would care. Its like a combination of an intelligent parrot and a shark
That's my approach. The only path to the survival of demonkind or of any individual demon, ultimately, is to learn to coexist with humans. The Demon King was their last best hope of organizing well enough to resist the growing power and numbers of humans militarily. And the demons are incapable of even comprehending what they lack. They can give it a name, like empathy, but they cannot actually experience it, and thus cannot understand it. They are in a world that makes no sense to them, because it is increasingly dominated by humans. It makes no sense, but they still have the intelligence to recognize that it is killing them off. Not being a demons, we can empathize and pity them for their situation, even as we can recognize that the residents of Frieren's world are entirely correct to hunt down every last demon for extermination.
My first reaction was to find them absolutely terrifying as a concept. If left alone, I could Imagine the demons infiltrating governments and setting up entire countries for the sole purpose of raising and harvesting humans to eat. Like cattle.
I pity them like I would pity the livestock I need to kill to feed myself. Though the reality is that I don't need the death of demons to sustain myself; the demons are the predators who need to die so that they cannot kill me. They're actually worse than wolves, because wolves can be tamed and domesticated to live in happy, mutually beneficial coexistence with humans. Wolves and dogs can eat things other than humans, but demons seemingly can only eat humans... or are compelled to kill humans, since we've never seen one eat a person, we've only heard an accusation that a girl demon ate a human girl.
It is shown that demons can actually ""learn"" to feel human emotions and some even seek out to try it themselves. However, they are not capable of truly understanding what the emotion or feeling truly is. Inside the demon's head there is only logical thinking, sorta like an AI where it mimics human thoughts randomly based on patterns and information. This is most prominent in the next arc (in the manga only by the time of this comment). On a side note, Frieren is also shown to be capable of understanding human emotions, though it just takes her super long to process them. Elves in the show are portrayed similar to demons in that they are apathetic. However, we have seen Frieren express humanly traits such as sadness, compassion, and even love. Frieren in her mind really loves Himmel, however she does not understand that feeling for a very long time. Her adventure with Fern and Stark is also partly derived from her love for Himmel (this is mainly my interpretation). SPOILERS ALERT: One of the seven sages of destruction: Macht tries to force himself to learn human emotion, even forcing himself to put on a bracelet that will kill him if he shows any malice or dark intentions. Then after Match turns the entire city to gold, he still is not slain and has continued to spread the gold further beyond the city boundaries. This shows that demons are quite literally incapable of learning or even attaining some human emotion or aspects, they only see things as black and white, sorta like what Frieren sees demons like. It is also interesting that Macht still remains loyal to his human master even to the end, despite turning him and his city into gold.
For me its quite easy not to feel pity for Aura in the shot when she beheaded herself and in all scenes where she was shown there are behind her tens of humans . men who cannot find rest for her magic tool . endlessly serving her . without rest . its quite easy you know
Same sentiments. I cannot feel sympathy with those undead humans behind her. She violated somebody's loved ones, so she doesn't deserve pity in my eyes.
I don't believe this is as much a foreign concept as some people make it out to be. In fact I believe we know exactly what it's like. We feel for Aura, but we know she isn't real. She's pixels on a screen. Just as Frieren feels something when presented with the illusion of Himmel, yet she destroys him despite feeling something because she knows he's not real. Just as we can feel for Aura despite knowing she's not real. And just as Frieren can destroy Aura, because she too knows Aura isn't a real person.
@@viktoriyaserebryakov2755 I don't "feel" for Aura . What is there to feel ? Just because she looks nice you're going to "feel" for her ? She's a demon plain and simple .
@@larkalfen9510 Liar. Everybody feels for something that appears human and can beg. Just as one feels for fictional characters. You didn't listen to a damn thing I said.
I don't think anyone would argue that demons lack a sense of self-preservation. Like the demon girl in the flashback said, the only reason that demons invoke the idea of "parents" is because they sincerely don't want to be killed and they have recognized that this sentiment is effective at achieving their goal. Qual doesn't bother to dress as an aristocrat like Lügner because he's too busy practicing Zoltrak. Putting that aside, you make an excellent about the show's attitude towards demon. While demons are presented as unambiguous threats to humans, the show doesn't glorify the killing of them. A regrettable necessity, more like. You it perfectly when you compare "Himmel /the hero/" and "Frieren /the slayer/".
Gotta like how thousands of anime-only Frieren enjoyers asuming stuff about demons, thinking it is still a mystery up to debate, when the very next arc after where the anime ends tells you everything you need to know about demons. Frieren DOES feel bad about killing demons, except just a handful of them. This is not really a spoiler, because just from the anime alone its pretty obvious that she doesn't really treat demons purely as unreasonable pest like she said, as she at least resonate with them about the sense of time, and most importantly, their passion of magic, when she clearly shows interest talking about these topics more than she needed to, and replying more than out of politeness, when she fights Aurora and the inventor of Zoltraack, I'm not even talking about later encounters in the manga. The series is HEAVILLY emphasizing on characters acting differently to what they said regardless of the race/species of the characters. some characters do that out of kindness and thoughtfulness, some do it to deceive, either their brains are hard-wired to do so or they choose to do so; either to deceive the others or deceiving themselves to numb their feelings to do what they have to do, *"you gotta out-decieve the demons to defeat them".* Edit: spelling.
You're just using spoilers to try and make an argument. It's natural for anime onlies to only use anime information to avoid spoilers and have an experience akin to the orginal readers of the manga.
@goatskin4487 It may not be obvious, but just from the show alone Frieren most definitely doesn't sees demons purely as unreasonable pest that are only capable to deceive people. The next arc just solidify this by having Frieren say this by herself, it's not a hidden detail or a plot twist.
@@atomicskull6405I highly doubt that even that would work. It probably would require biological and even genetic manipulation to make demons feel like humans. Like transferring their minds to a human body, creating a demon-human hybrid, etc...
Frieren's depictions of demons are probably the most refreshing they've been in a while in anime. Demons by the most original sense are creatures of deception and corruption, dating back to the olden times were their origins are seducing people to sin. Modern anime kind of just makes demons humans but with horns with no real reason why they'd look like people while not being humans in the first place. In Frieren it's established that they look like people in order to garner sympathy and advantage, after all you won't show mercy to something that looks like a monster, but you will show it to something that looks and sounds like a person. That one scene with the demon saying "mother" while having no concept of family was really cool, since it plays into what would be a stereotypical thing to say in times of hardship being used as a shield instead by an enemy. In future arcs too, El dorado, it gets even better with their origins and psychology and physiology as demons plays into how they are more thought out than one might think.
well, no. Even in the manga it is very clear and heavily implied that the Demon King himself launched an invasion against the Unified Empire even after it became a shadow of its former glory, where its divided into multiple kingdoms from the South and a few city-states and villages in the Northern Plateu. As well as launching a surprise attack on the elves with a single command of exterminating them. Hell it was so bad that it was because of Flamme that humanity actually gained an equal footing against the demons. @@SapuTaro-nr5bl
If you’re going by the Christian sense. Demons or rather Daemons were originally more just spirits that could be good (agathodaemons) or evil (cacodaemons)
Well, even in the future story, we'll see a demon, a strong one that has a desire to understand human emotions, he tried to learn it for decades, living closely with humans in a town, actively interacting with them, and having a friend that willingly helped him understand it, knowing the possible danger the demon could bring to his town. but in the end, the demon still fails to understand human emotion. The townfolks he had been living with for decades ended up being cursed with a spell he casts.
Also remember his ways of learning about guilt and malice is by activately Harming humans to see those emotions, as he is pretty agressive with his ways of learning
@@atomicskull6405spoiler for those who haven't read And like Frieren said, this is why Demon King very dangerous. He also want co-existence and understanding, but his method is through war and "cleansing" (elf village for one example). Humanity would long gone before he finally understand
i love frieren, and also love how the demon concept is used, but i really would have loved to see world of frieren, with antagonists who are not those absolute evil beings who are irredeemable, because it would introduce a lot of ethical dynamics, maybe political conflicts, storylines like corruption of the good, emphaty towards the enemy, human flaws and atrocities they can commit under specific conditions, maybe showing both redemption, and also going to point where there is no redemption anymore... i love the complexity of it all, and would be cool to see more morally gray frieren, but i don't say this as a flaw, i love the current demon concept too, and i think it fits the tone, but if they want to use emphaty towards the demons plotline, or show a cruel side of frieren, demons being an absolute evil existence won't work, they will need to use other elements. To me demons in the show are similar cancer cells in real world, they're disguised as you normal cells too, to trick your immune system. i wouldn't call them good or evil, they're simply exist in the world doing what they're programmed to do, like cancer cells, or some parasites, therefore there isn't much moral conflict. This anology would make frieren and her team like researchers and traveling doctors in my opinion.
In frieren, it's explained that demon's were beast's that at first doing things based on pure instinct, but then they're gradualy have some intelegences, sense of coordinations, and later some understanding of some emotions, but they lack's understanding of many basic's human emotions and understandings
While the demons in Sousou no Frieren are capable of selfish emotions (like Aura not wanting to die), it is still true that they are basically antisocial predators of humans. The scene with the demon child is a good example of this, as while she appears weak in that moment, she is actually powerful enough to effortlessly slaughter an adult man, who by all appearances would be stronger than a supposedly "weak and injured child". If Frieren and Himmel weren't there, that one demon would probably be able to singlehandedly massacre the population of that village. I read the flashback scene as Frieren using the lives as innocent bystanders as a tool to teach Himmel not to trust demons, which was pretty bad in its own way.
I wouldn’t consider her THAT callous. It was Himmel’s decision, at the end of the day, and it wasn’t her position to call the shots. She had the exact same reaction in the present when faced with a city that was hosting demons as peace envoys; she accepted going to jail on the spot, and let things play out. She couldn’t just fight everyone to impose her ideals.
@@matilozano96 yes, you're right. She said her piece, but you have to let people make their own mistakes. There is an aspect of the lives of humans having less meaning to her though. Which is natural, in a way, for someone who lives so much longer. And the story being told is of Frieren overcoming that.
Nah. If I was an elf mage with tons of knowledge and the naive humans around me all want to spare the demon child. I would let them, but will warn them that they're very likely making the wrong decision and would get themselves killed. That's basically what Frieren did. She even stuck around for them. I am basically an outsider among humans, they will never believe me about the demon child unless they themselves see how dangerous they are. Hell, the kid already ate a human child. It is unfortunate that someone else got killed but if they don't learn this lesson while I'm there, they never will once I left. Either they reluctantly agree with me which would get them killed once the next demon child comes along (what if he's wrong?), I kill the kid without their consent which will get them killed when the next demon child arrives (we're not like that elf psychopath!) or I warn them and stick around until the demon child spazzes out and they get to see how different demons are to humans. (last chief got mogged by demon child, let's not fall for that again.)
Its animalistic emotion and base desire without a pathological understanding of pack mentality like humans, other sapients, dogs, elephants etc. All cooperation is mutual interest where both parties CAN and WILL kill the other if they so much as step out of line.
I fully agree that demons have emotions. There's only so much you can mimic before you realize that you can't tell the difference. The fact of the matter is that demons in the show are not peaceful creatures that deserve our empathy. The only goal they have for understanding human emotion is how they can use it to kill more humans. The only reason we feel bad is because they look like us, but there are real humans that do heinous acts like the demons and we can agree that they deserve the worse thing coming to them. So even if they have emotions, it does not mean they deserve our empathy. I also don't agree with the idea of dehumanizing them (even if they weren't human to begin with). It gives them the priviledge that all animals have; and that is operating instinctually for the sake of survival. These demons are fully conscious, logical and aware of what they are doing, they prey on weaker creature to satisfy their pride. They are evil to the bone. My point is we are allowed to feel bad, it shows that we empathy but f*ck 'em anyways
3:09 You would 100% be eaten by demons. The show makes it very clear that they are monsters, who evolved to use human language, so that they could more easily trick and eat said humans. The fact that you're falling for their (in universe) evolved behaviour is really funny.
Well these human points makes us humans. The reason you don't feel anything when they are killed vs the human looking ones are something that's hardwired in us. To humans letting someone similar to us who shares same looks and values to us is far more beneficial for survival than a snak horse mix creature. I like how this show pointed out the human psychology and how empathy works. A similar thing you can see in the game Undertale but there the message is more about you than the entire world. Example I absolutely broke into tears when i saw the player killing goatmom in the destroy everyone run on TH-cam. Because in the beginning of the game she showed is love like a mother to her child.
I think a reason why it might be so hard to wrap your head around it is that we have been conditioned by similar stories along the lines of "just because they look different doesn't mean they're not worthy of empathy". So when a show comes around that actually tries to make the point "just because something is humanoid, does not mean it has human characteristics", we tend to reject it. And in the case of Frieren it's even more difficult, because the race in question actively uses this "flaw" in the human psyche and therefore tries to seem as human as possible, while being fundamentally different.
While I agree that they certainly play up how deceptive the demons are at every moment and every turn, I think the way they portray demons in frieren is far more interesting than if they were some kind of morally grey villain. Yes, they feel emotions. Yes, they use language to communicate. But it is also clear that they do not feel these things the same ways that humans do. They feel no connection to the people (or demons ig) around them. Some examples: In her fight with frieren, aura asks her why she isn't using flashy spells and destroying the suits of armor like she did 80 years ago. Frieren says it's because himmel scolded her not too, since it is disrespectful of the dead. Aura says that that's all the more reason to destroy them, since himmel isn't there to scold her. This makes it clear that while aura understands the want to not be scolded or reprimanded or whatnot, she doesn't understand that there is a moral and emotional obligation to not do those actions anyway, since they aren't just. Demons don't have any morality, all they want is to survive and become more powerful. Frieren takes this as proof that demons are just as monsterous as she thought. Another example, the flashback you discuss in the video. The young demon may have truly wanted to live in the village in peace. However, she has developed no attachment, no debt, no love for the man who was between her and death. She couldn't understand how the parents of the girl she killed felt, that she couldn't just replace their child with another. Neither did she understand that the chief's daughter loved him, and that it would bring her unfathomable pain to know that her father was killed. We see multiple times that many different demons will use words to bargain their way out of dying. The little girl calls out for 'mother' right when himmel and frieren are about to deal a killing blow, because she knows that it makes humans not want to kill them. And in that way, she views that word as magical. The guy who tried to assassinate frieren while she was in the jail cell makes a last ditch effort to talk to her, calling out "wait!" right before frieren blows off his head. When lugner is surrounded by granat's guards and hasn't yet gotten what he wants yet (the spell to the barrier around the town so they can take it down and decimate the city) blatantly lies about having a father because he knows humans are emotionally connected to things like that. While not every word that comes out of a demon's mouth is meant to be trickery, they most certainly do use it to try and get out of unfavorable situations. There is this whole arc in the manga that goes into depth about the feelings, or lack thereof, of demons when they interact with humans. They are not 'evil' in the traditional sense because they can barely comprehend the idea that the their actions might be considered 'evil' to humans. They absolutely have self preservation and feelings like fear when that is threatened. That is true of even animals. Aura looking frightened when she's about to cut her own head off is because she's scared of dying. It's also said that demons only have love for magic, and spend their entire lives trying to perfect a certain subset of it. They most certainly have emotions and goals, they are a sentient race after all. But they feel absolutely no remorse when killing people because it's not possible for them. Super interesting stuff!
I think the difference between Frieren and the demons is that Frieren and those like her ARE capable of feeling and understanding the same range of emotions as humans, however due to her long lived life span she and those like her don't feel it the same way humans do. Fieren has lived so long that 50 years to her seemed like a weekend however once she realized that she wasted 60 years she could have used to get to know her friends better, she ended up breaking down in tears after realizing her mistake. So she is clearly capable of feeling regular human feelings, she just feels them differently. Demons on the other hand don't seem to understand human emotions at all and seem incapable of feeling anything at all for humans much less each other and whatever they do understand they've been shown to mainly use as a manipulation tactic and have even self admitted that they don't actually understand the things they are saying but say it anyway since they know that it'll have an affect on the humans. They clearly have goals outside of survival, if they didn't then why did they go out of their way to try to take down a magical barrier protecting a city and later invading it with an army of the undead? Clearly they're not innocent creatures who just want to live their best life and Frieren has lived long enough and has seen enough to know that.
The thing about the Demon Girl is that she could do anything else. She could have run away, lead other demons to the village, kill everybody while they were sleeping, etc. But she chose to stay, and chose to try to "fix" what she understood as wrong: "I took a girl from that human -> i can sense that human's bloodlust -> I will give her another girl so she calms down". It isn't even founded in cold rationality because she couldn't even understand that her "fix" would ultimately be more dangerous to her than the angry woman. Don't get me wrong, it's still monstrous, but to me its a clear indicative that the Demon Girl found confort in her life in the village and sought to keep it (albeit in a pretty fucked up way). All things said, while peace may be possible (instead of total anihilation), i don't think coexistence can be an option.
Realistically the mother and father were no real threat to her living there, since the leader of the village said she can live there. While they have no understanding of family, they do understand hierarchy and that if a leader says something is how things will go ( in this instance they can see if she won't kill anyone) then that's what will happen. If she simply ignored them it would all eventually blow over. But it's in Demon's nature to kill, and so she did in order to replace what she "broke."
What's clear? It's not clear at all. For all you know, she just rationally concluded that a peace offering was in the interest of her survival, but lacks any understanding of humans to do so effectively. Or she could have lashed out in bloodlust, then fabricated an excuse when confronted. Nothing is clearly indicated here.
@@generalgarchomp333 yes demons understand hierachy but they view this also different. for demons, the strongest person will always be the leader. maybe she thought the griefing mother/father is actually more important because they have slightly more mana or just looked stronger, since they where younger than the village chief.
@@Seifersythe No. As long as you can coexist peacefully with those that do have empathy, you are usually left alone. Elves, while they have the capacity for empathy, are usually stoic and isolationist. And yet, it's the demons that tried wiping them out, not humans. Do humans not deserve to fight back when faced with extinction or being treated like cattle, because another sentient race fails to coexist properly with them for lacking that trait? It is right for any individual to strive for the survival of their species, thus I don't see either side as wrong, but I'm a human so obviously I chose to side with my race. Also, other races like elves and dwarves have shown their capacity to reciprocate empathy in a non-callous manner, hence their coexistence with humans, to the point they are considered part of humanity. Demons have proven their incompatibility, even towards elves(which they share a similar trait of mana potential). Thus conflict is inevitable to those that lack empathy when having neighbors that do. They were even given plenty of opportunity to coexist with humans(even through peaceful isolationism), but they continue to threaten our existence regardless(Aura the guillotine and her underlings have proven that). They literally see humans as livestock/prey and guinea pigs for their magic experiments. And humans aren't pushovers but they still try for diplomacy first, hence why Lugner and the others are able to get inside that fortified city.
@@SeifersytheNo, but an alarming number of people in this comment section seem to think it is, they forget psychopaths exist and are just as much people despite not feeling empathy.
@@jadivodscalls into question who the real demons are lol. those who kill because it's the only thing they know, or those who rationalize and justify it?
Yeh your take's pretty fair, I think the only reason people are so heated on this is cuz all the terminaly online twitter users calling saying that if you think deamons are evil your a nazi or watheverver the heck
I think there's a point to examining the different reactions to dying of the demons. Lugner was very proud of his magic and valued it over all else, so he died in anger due to losing against someone who 'cheated' in the only thing he cared about. Aura was a demon general who had an army and had survived the hero's party. She was proud above all else, and felt invincible with her auserlese. Frieren completely overwhelming her with the one thing she had dedicated her whole life toward made her feel small and insignificant again, making her feel fear likely for the first time since 80 years ago (Aura was said to have run away from the hero's party after being wounded by them). Qual created the first piercing magic zoltraak which would go on to kill almost all human mages in the region that he was deployed in, he was an absolute unit in his time, and could replicate defensive magic the instant he saw it used. Imagine an engineer in real life that can build a car after seeing it once, that is absolutely unreal amounts of genius. He couldn't be beaten by the hero's (unlike the literal demon king), but was later oneshotted by frieren by his own spell. In his dying moments he is simply shocked he could be overwhelmed so easily, and that he was beaten by his own creation. Out of these Lugner started out decieving humans but also spoke honestly after his cover was blown and he was confident he could beat his opponent without deceit, Aura and Qual were simply confident in their abilities or knew their opponents beforehand so they didn't even try to lie. It can be assumed that all three were somewhat genuine in their reactions when fighting to the death with the cast. And finally the demon girl in the village. She is the most interesting because after failing to deceive the humans she says that "mom is a magical word, because it keeps you from killing us". Even though she never casted a spell the relation is there. Each of the demons talk about magic when dying, and being creatures composed entirely of mana it makes sense. They are more akin to a force of nature or wild beasts that are simply the apex predator for humans. A wolf is not evil when it slaughters an entire flock of sheep to eat only one, it's simply its nature. If the wolf was intelligent it would have killed only to feed, but being a beast it feels the need to hunt, even when there is no benefit to it. The demons in frieren are similar. Qual says that the appropriate reason for killing Frieren should be revenge for the demon king, meaning he didn't really care what reason it was he just wanted to do it. Lugner says he was happy it turned out this way after being exposed, because then he can kill everyone in town. The demon girl also doesn't even understand that humans see killing other humans as a bad thing, and thinks it's a great solution to just kill the chief so that the mother can have the daughter back. She also gets to devour the chief as a bonus of course. The demons simply work outside human morality, it's very tolkien like. There is no evil, just the absence of good.
I actually view Qual with greater empathy than the more human-like ones. Qual was more interested in learning than the actual act of killing humans. Still hella evil ofc, but he could have laid another golden egg with his brilliance.
That's because Qual actually is not the same species as the demons. The correct translation for Qual describes him as a demonic monster. Not the same as the human-like demons that simply lack morality or empathy
They have pride, anger, and fear, but dont have empathy, you gonna have good treat when the story enter gold demon arc (if madhouse make the season 2, but you can always read the manga)
I totally agree with your point here. Killing demons is a necessity for survival in Frieren's world, but that doesn't make it wrong to feel bad for them. Demons are the agressors in this conflict, and it seems impossible to reason with them, but that still doesn't mean feeling empathy and/or sympathy for them is wrong. Demons may be classified as pure predators or parasites but they're still intelligent creatures and seem capable of enjoying life and as well as fearing to lose it. That is enough for me. They may be complete sociopaths one and all, but it's not like I believe sociopaths are underserving of life. Life just happens. Nobody deserves it and nobody is underserving of it. Humans are absolutely in the right for trying/wanting to kill all the demons. Demons are incredibly powerful and dangerous with worldviews that seem utterly incompatible with humanity - or at least we've yet to see one in the series so far. That won't stop me from feeling bad for all creatures that experience suffering.
Where's the limit then ? All creatures suffer, pretty terribly, and we arbritrarily choose to care about some and less about others. The reason why it's problem that you feel bad for them is because it increases the chance of making a wrong decision when lives are at stake.
Saying frieren is morally the same with demons is absolutely insane. Frieren possesses the same capability to feel empathy for demons like the villagers did, however she, has lived for over a thousand years slaying demons and knows better than to trust them. In fact, she doesn't just feel indifferent towards them like demons do about humans, she probably hates them for massacring her village of elves.
While I agree that both Frieren and the Demons share a somewhat similar outlook on life and humans / people in general, I think it's rather shallow to say they're essentially the same thing. I've watched the anime in its entirety and not once have I seen Frieren kill, deceive or betray someone in order to achieve her goals or improve herself, while Demons seem more than happy to do all of those things from the very moment they're born. The most harmful thing Frieren ever did to someone else was being complacent and indifferent to their feelings, and even that she manages to overcome throughout the story. Simply put: To say that Frieren is no better than the Demons she slay is to ignore every single kind and selfless deed she has done in her life. No Demon would ever even consider helping a lost boy in the forest just because they can.
Here's the thing. The story has a framework of meaning. And within that framework, Frieren is the absolute ideal. Her judgment is corect by definition. Her reaction toward demons is what tells us everything we need to know about them. Every subsequent display of humantiy from the demons works to deepen the uncanny threat they represent in our mind.
> Her judgment is corect by definition. It is, if you ignore the cases when she was wrong. As stupid as it is to take everything in postmodern deconstructive way, it's also stupid to take everything at face value.
Frieren is 100% in the right for choosing to exterminate demons on sight. The method she used to kill Aura was a deliberate act of karmic retribution. Kill Aura in the exact way she killed others. Demons in this series are supposed to be an allegory. For real life psychopaths. Demons and psychopaths have a lot in common. 1. Incapable of empathy and biologically incapable of being good people. 2. Only capable of caring for themselves. Anything resembling caring for others is purely an act to get their victims to drop their guard. Any positive emotion besides pleasure in hurting others or self pride is purely an act to bait people into dropping their guard. 3. Naturally manipulative/deceitful. In essence, psychopaths and demons are disgusting creatures that seek only to corrupt or harm everything they get their hands on.
From what the show says, demons are beast that are capable of communication. I think the way I saw it is as they are animals, and if you're willing to kill a lion for attacking you then its the same thing as killing a demon for existing.
One thing that shows the difference between Frieren and demons from episode 7 is in how the help the merchant. When asked why she doesn’t just fly the cart over the landslide she replies that it wouldn’t help the next people using the rode. Demons up until this point only care about themselves, not even caring about their own kind. Frieren has shown time and time again to do extra work because it is beneficial to others who she won’t even meet.
That was a great analyzation. The quote from Gandalf about morality of life and death, as well as a wider knowledge of Tolkien fantasy is a great stage setter for a philosophical and metaphysical argument about the value of morals versus existentialism. Great video and editing. I hope your channel skyrockets in views and subscribers because you deserve it. Keep up the good work!
It should change - at the lastest when you come around the Demon Tod. That should chang your opinion. Also you talk, but don't understand the main difference. Humans / Elves / Dwarfs all have something in common it is altruism. Demons don't care. They would not left alone 10000 years later have erect one orphanage, built an elder care home or be any more engaged with their own kind then it is necessary to achieving their own measuring up against all others. Also you are mixing monsters with demons. Einsam are monsters not demons. Why demons look different with some have human appearance and some not doesn't matter. Humanization is futile. Also your Gollum straw man is a straw man that you need to be called out for. Gandalf will not make a discussion with you about Balrogs and that Balrog lives matter! So stop BSing yourself and your audience. Gandalf is altruistic going up against what he perceives as evil by nature, not by circumstances like with Gollum, a former Halfling. I'm not saying asking the question is wrong. But coming to your conclusion having false premisses it is in my book. In the end in Frierens world it is not a moral question, that you make it out to be, but an existential. And for that there is only the highland gambit outcome.
Bit late to the party here, but demons in Frieren are more like an AI animal hybrid from my understanding. Essentially give a crocodile the capabilities of ChatGPT and you have a demon. Sure it is intelligent and can express emotions, but it is incapable of actually feeling or empathizing. The only real emotion they can feel is pride and even then it's not the same pride we feel, it's more akin to being the alpha of a pack. They take "pride" in their mana and magical talent because it places them higher in their animal hierarchy; they are closer to being the alpha if they have the power to do so. As for why they can cry and express emotions, it is a similar tactic to what Frieren does when she controls the flow of her mana. It's a diversionary tactic to raise their chances of survival. Aura cries because she is either trying to convince Frieren to spare her or her pride is hurt for having her own power used against her, like when a wolf whimpers after getting hurt in a fight.
You, sayng we should feel sorry for seeing demons being dispatched such a cold way is the point made, Frieren knows they are cruel and deceivers, and human will always fall for a baby crying for their mother, the tears of an opponent soon to die, and humans WOULD break or lower their defense and that the moment where demons would strike. So no. No pity, cold blood erasing of those puppets empty of feelings.
It's hard to get angry at the demons, since they aren't malicious, they are just amoral, they have no sense of morality. They completely fail to understand humans and just care about self preservation. It's like getting angry at a lightning strike which kills someone.
@@bignoob2726 If I may, I would add that self preservation isn't mutually exclusive from the desire to live comfortably. Us humans have a sense of self preservation, and yet we also like to live comfortably (eat good, wear nice clothes, etc.). This doesn't seem very different to the demons In the anime. In the show, humans are food for demons, much like how cattle and livestock are food for humans IRL. We also wiped out entire forests so we could have more resources, buildings and infrastructure. Kind of the same thing here. In the end, It's all subjective and it depends on which side you're on. I'm a human, so in any media where its humans vs some other species, of course I'd want to side with humans.
@@platedplatypus9932 the funny thing is, demons don't need to eat humans for survival. They can eat other foods as well, eating humans is more of a satisfaction factor for them. They don't have to kill humans, they actively choose to. If you offer them two choices, kill a cow, cook and eat what remains of it.. or kill a human, they will choose to kill the human 100% of the time.
It's always easier to say demons should be killed when viewing the story from a 3rd person view. (And I believe some people just want to say "hah I know more about this than you get owned!!") What I loved about later plots in the original manga, is how the sotry progressively shown us more about the demons, not just the "evilness" of the specie as a whole, but how their individual motivation, and the difference in reaction between human and demon on the same situation.
My heart strings were initially tugged by Aura, but they're supposed to be because demons very effectively prey on empathy. Frieren is an interesting anime to me in the way it asks the audience to look past words and see actions, specifically the impact on the background characters most narratives ignore. The treatment of demons is a direct response to the greater fantasy and romance genre's attempts to humanize monsters. The narrative points out the suffering that's ignored in the place of blanket forgiveness. The narrative states this is a very natural human thing to do, and shows how doing so minimizes the suffering of secondary and tertiary characters who vocalize their pain less eloquently. Using the right words (the demon saying, "Mom.") makes the aggressor more palatable, more like us, and therefore more worthy of protection than their victim. Worthy of protection from their victim in fact. The expressed vulnerability doesn't match with what we saw happen. We can't comprehend why someone who looks so much like us would do this, so we create excuses. The defense of every domestic abuser everywhere. "I just didn't understand what this meant. I'm so sorry I hurt you. It was a mistake. I'll do better next time." Then the abuser behaves the same way, the cycle continues, and the people in the community defend their actions at the expense of the victim. The narrative carefully depicts how language, appearance, word choice, and perceived familiarity ensures some characters matter more than others. We see multiple human characters be taken in by this predictable pattern. A great example here is Aura. You describe and then dismiss the soldiers whose souls she enslaves as minions. You honed in on the scenes where she's crying and afraid, not the scenes where she gleefully subjugates others. Aura is cute and attractive. Our instinct is to humanize Aura at the expense of her victims. Frieren doesn't. Sousou no Frieren specifically juxtaposes a cute demon girl against the faceless, empty armors behind her and tells us which side Frieren is on. Frieren mentions she recognizes some of the armors in the crowd of so-called minions, meaning some in that army had been enslaved for at least fifty years. Aura is shown to take enjoyment from her victories. She takes satisfaction and pleasure in the torture of the subjugated person. None of the people she uses are there willingly. The soldiers aren't people to Aura, but even if the body decayed to dust, the soul remains and the soul suffers. What Frieren tells Aura to do in the end is in fact lesser than the pain Aura inflicted on the human knights whose souls she enslaved. Yet some in the audience become angry with Frieren for not demonstrating the appropriate emotion/contrition for her actions or providing Aura with a death that meets heroic standards. We feel bad for Aura who does show these emotions. Despite the pattern repeating itself, we sympathize with Aura for showing vulnerability because our expectations for her are different as a villain. We see her being recognizably like us by reacting the way we'd expect a "good" person to respond, and in our sympathy/empathy we dismiss the suffering Aura's caused. Which is, honestly, very interesting.
I agree with you and I agree with many of your points and so are the same I have but If I'm honest I didn't feel anything when frieren killed that lil demon or Aura.
You know, a simple thing I noticed that makes frieren different from demons - I have yet to see any demons help somebody even when they have nothing to gain from it. That's just what she does most of the time( at least for a 1000+years.) Another thing I have yet to see is any demons struggle with mimics, even with the 99% certainty😂
I interpreted frirens smile as pride or satisfaction in knowing her friends can handle the threats in front of them and they don't need her to hold thier hands even if they don't quite believe in themselves.
This. It wasn't bloodthirst. She didn't want to fight Aura and expressed a desire to get the necessary chore over with. And further on that topic, she actually expressed pity for Aura when Aura decided to use the scales, despite having been her version of raging mad after the Himmel conversation. Frieren's smile was for her kids. And she was empathetic despite her emotions rarely being on display.
By the way, dehumanization can only happen if they are human, you are anthropomorphize the demons. Maybe after 1000 years, you can respect Frerein's judgement as she is right time after time. Maybe that is the message of the author? Those who do not respect experience and age are doomed.
The Demons in Frieren are basically a different form of mimic: Instead of preying on human greed/curiosity, they prey on human empathy/kindness.
And it is quite effective, even the Original Video Author of this is even affected and Many in Twittards try to cancel for saying she's 'racist' against Demons.
Listen, they Empathize on Demons on this series.
The Other shows Humanize Demons, but in Freiren, they are literally different Species, Not even a same Race.
very good way to put it
yes and the anime clearly stated that yet twitter made a twitter and turned it into a racism analogy wich is just dumb. Demons arent even a race in this anime they are an entirely different species.
@@imperialspacemarine1539 Elder Scrolls straight up mocks the "line" between "people" and "monster", given that the First Empire had a minotaur emperor and, until ESIII Morrowind, orcs counted as "monsters". This "line" should be mocked because it is worthless.
@@DarkAdonisVyers ... a monster is not dfined by its outside. Its defined by its inside. That a minotaur was aking just means that he was a great person. The orks thing on the other hand can literally be explained by the fact that people are dicks.
The Line between monster and people should not be mocked at all. There is a reason for it. It is important *who* draws the line and *for what purpose* .
I want to ask you: what do you call an empathyless, heartless but still inteligent person who commits atrocities for no reason other than "shits and giggles"? What would that person be called? And why would they be called that way?
Also just to point out: ES and Frieren are two different fantasy worlds and while still compareable tackled the Idea of "Monster" in two completely different ways. In ES a "Monster" is everything non- or vaguely humanoid with less inteligence or civility than the established races. Its quite literally judging tje book by the cover. Frieren on the other hand took it in the direction of "Monsters may look beastly and menacing but they can also look and think very similar to us. How they do things and how they think makes monsters monsters".
Its quite ridiculous to use a differently defined "monster" from an entirely different fantasy world to argue that monsters in frieren shouldnt exist. Its literally comparing apples with oranges.
Not so fun fact: the demon that ate a child doesn’t know what “mom” means, so she must’ve heard it. She probably heard it from the child who was eaten screaming “mom” before dying, and that’s why she also said “mom”. And that’s really dark.
Holy, fucking, shit, now i can't unsee that, thank you.
It makes so much sense now that you pointed it out 🙁
@@soysource3218 I thought the demons themselves literally said that already.
@viktoriyaserebryakov2755 No, the demon said the reason why they say "mom" is because humans get off guard/spare her when she does it. The OP's natural conclusion is "where did they learn it though 😲"
@@JayceCH. The other demons. They literally laugh about not knowing what parents are.
For the first time in *fuckin forever* Demons are actually just Demons. No matter how pretty, alluring, charming, civil, or nice they may seem they are Humanoid Predators. They are Demonic creatures, not just magical humans with minor aesthetic differences like so many more recent series have been making them. That is such a breath of fresh air, because as much as I like Misfit at Demon King Academy they just don't look like demons.
exactly. The trope subversion of demons having empathy is so goddamn overused in fiction that it became the new conventional trope. And now that a show the provides the olden actual trope of demons, it becomes an outlier.
The Demons in Frieren are not that demonic if you ask me. The original meaning for the term Demon translated only to _"evil spirit"_ but the Demons in Frieren are not evil.
They are... *'natural psychopaths'* and later on in the series, ironically, a Demon called Solitär compares Demons to Elves, Dwarfs & Humans with two other animals which perfectly match the description. A Demon is a shark. And the other species, are Dolphins.
Sharks are much more bestial, have less empathy and group-think and just look for anything that allows them to live a littler longer.
And if that be just by a Human corpse they can eat.
It is not like they are that focussed on killing Humans. Its just what makes sense in their solely on survival programmed minds.
If you think closely about it the only reason Demons do not extinct their own species all by themself is their inability to truly profit from killing each other.
As when a Demon dies they disolve into mana and therefore the weaker Demons are safe. As subjugated underlings who know their place of course.
Which also makes a lot of sense for them.
Demons aren't evil.
They are just very primitive for the most part.
Often too much so to truly comprehend the non-Demonic humanoids.
Which in turn brings forth the tragedys. Handling your speaking Raptor can be dangerous after all.
@@LawfulBased Natural psychopaths ARE evil. The "human"(in this case including elves, dwarves, etc.) are the only perspective that matters.
@@jayzenstyle Demon is a subjective thing, demons are only bad in two religions....is everyone in the world forced to write christian and Muslim stories? 33% of the world is not christian nor Muslim.
@@Dianruakrhakakks those other cultures technically do not call them demons. They're otherwise called as spirits, fae, djinn, youkai, etc. which can be referred to as 'demons' but in the literal definition of the word they do not exactly match. It literally means "evil spirit".
"I'd feel sad if a marine stomped a baby xenomorph." Now hold on there cowboy. That's some high heresy right there.
I say we take off and nuke the entire site (baby aliens included) from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
He never heard of 40k apparently.
EXACTLY!💯
When Ripley burned the queen's brood, I was cheering.
Heresy detected!
Short answer:
The difference between Frieren and demons is that though both don't (initially) understand humans, Frieren does not actively kill humans and/or consciously causes them harm.
Long answer below the cut:
There's also an interesting detail about the nameless demon child killing the chief and kidnapping his kid as "a replacement for the child she killed":
Remember before being taken in she'd killed a little kid and the parents were constantly glaring at her for as long as she lived there.
Since she was spared by the hero party and taken in by the chief, she recognized the parents of the dead child as the only remaining threat to her safety. By that point she somewhat understood that killing kids was a no-no for humans, and (assuming she was honest about this) she said she wanted to live in peace, so what was the solution? She killed an adult instead. An adult who had a child of similar age to the one who died before, so that the family could take the new orphan in and hopefully stop hating her.
It's a very metodical, even simple line of thought: "You hate me for breaking X, so I got a new X for you."
She also realized that, from how the grieving parents reacted, killing the chief was a bad decision. But she didn't understand *why*, and it wasn't an act she could undo.
Other demons displayed different emotions too, as mentioned in the video:
Aura was terrified of dying.
Qual was bewildered at Frieren and Fern using his own spell against him.
Draht had a rather sadistic hint of joy in his face while he still thought killing Frieren would be easy.
Lugner was shocked at Linie's defeat/death, and then outraged at Fern and Frieren hiding their mana.
So it's not that demons lack emotions. It's just that those emotions don't weigh much on their actions and the way they understand the world around them is intrinsically different to how a human would. The difference clashes so bad against human values that even the smartest demons/kinder humans struggle to fully understand the other side, no matter how hard they try.
Those who read the manga can attest, some demons *do try*, but they still fail nonetheless.
Edit: Grammar & cohesion.
I think the child mere appearance in the story disproves theory of demons having emotions
Aura, Draht, lugner and rest were older demons that got to know how human emotions work and mimic them to extent (propably by killing and observing humans)
This is why i think Aura's panic wasn't geniuine emotion, It's just her still being "in the role"
It's faking it until you make it.
When Freiren asked flamme how long should she supress her mana to fool demons Flamme simply said "Whole life"
Demons do exactly that. They fake their emotions for life to fool humans, they are used to mimicking emotions that they display them even when it dosen't bring them any benefit.
Sorry for replying for a month old comment, but i hope someone will read it ^^
@ofal5124 no need to apologise, I've replied to years-old comments before where the OPs replied just as if the commend was 1-day-old. If people don't want to reply to old comments, they just won't - either way you're fine.
Either way, I've always seen the younger demons as the proof that demons *do* have emotions, simply because what they say/how they act makes sense compared to human children: they're more impulsive, and have an underdevelopped social filter, and therefore they're more honest if compared to the older demons where everything should be taken with a grain of salt.
Aura and Qual are definitely old (500~ years old), and Lugner isn't too far behind, but Draht and Linie and the unnamed demon child are younger (Drath is called a kid/young by Lugner at some point, Linie was a toddler during Himmel's time, the child was a child until she died).
It could go either way at this point, so I see both views on demons as valid. The only way to know for sure which is right would be asking the author.
@@ofal5124 no need to apologise, I've replied to years-old comments before where the OPs replied just as if the commend was 1-day-old. If people don't want to reply to old comments, they just won't - either way you're fine.
Either way, I've always seen the younger demons as the proof that demons do have emotions, simply because what they say/how they act makes sense compared to human children: they're more impulsive, and have an underdevelopped social filter, and therefore they're more honest if compared to the older demons where everything should be taken with a grain of salt.
Aura and Qual are definitely old (500+ years old), and Lugner isn't too far behind, but Draht and Linie and the unnamed demon child are younger (Drath is called a kid/young by Lugner at some point, Linie was a toddler during Himmel's time, the child was a child until she died).
It could go either way at this point, so I see both views on demons as valid. The only way to know for sure which is right would be asking the author.
(Sorry if you're seeing this text twice. TH-cam glitched and isn't showing me my first reply.)
@@ofal5124 honestly, this comment (and similar ones) really afraid me.
people are just easily manipulated by just a few words and "truth", it really shows how easy it is for people to dehumanize and despise beings that don't "fit in" into their perception of the world (a very anthropocentric one btw)
when we have actual non humans living (or existing) amongst us, i believe that this dangerous rethoric will be exploited and used to justify genocide.
@@Yuki_Seraphim You are overthinking it.
Story so far portrayed demons as exclusivly evil race, that is enemy of other sentient races by their nature. They are evil and serve their role as narrative device, just like Jack horner from puss in boots.
so im sorry if eating humans dosen't fit in my perception of the world.
but I feel offended that you even assume I could get "manipulated" into hating some potential sentient non-human lifeforms
The contrast between the child demon and the adult demons is the biggest gave away here, imo. The child demon is more robot like, while the adults that are hundreds of years old has better human-like reactions, expressing pain and whatnot.
Imagine the child demon in Aura's situation, would the kid have shed tears when it can't even mimic the expression of pain yet? Is it the demon getting better at copying humans or is it the demon becoming human because they ate too much human meat over 500 years?
But lets also remember, Frieren herself is more than a thousand years old. Her bored expression watching Himmel and the others get tricked and cold demeanor when slaying demons is a product of thousand years of watching gamers preorder broken video games.
That's a hilarious way to put her sitting back and watching ngl.
As pointed out in this exact video, that contrast doesn't actually make any sense because Aura had no reason to express pain or fear other than genuinely feeling it. Frieren didn't care about her, and wasn't looking at her. The only logical explanation for her actions was that she genuinely feared death and wanted to live, but was being killed.
@@YumLemmingKebabs Those tears are the same as the child saying "mama" again and again before taking the final hit from frieren. It has no reason to say then and it's still not genuinely looking for it's mama.
That people feel bad for aura just cause of those tears, you just know that the demons are doing a great job at tricking people.
Imagine if these kinds of demons exist in the real world and are in social media right now. You will be one of the people that will defend them.
@@belldrop7365 As was explicitly pointed out in the video you supposedly just watched and by me just now. No they aren't the same as the child saying "Mom." No one was looking at her, she knew Frieren wasn't going to show mercy. There was no point in crying except for her own emotional reaction to being killed.
Also, what is even the point of that last paragraph? lol The kinds of people you're talking about don't actually exist IRL, except in the paranoid imaginations of fascists.
@@YumLemmingKebabs The point of the last paragraph is to zoom in the point that the viewers/readers are human too and subject to the very same guile demons use unto the characters.
An emotion outcry or
if (chance of survival = 0)
tear ducts = 1
else
mama = 1
I don't know if it's been mentioned in the anime yet but the lack of empathy part boils down to biological differences, kinda like how a pitcher plant would not feel empathy towards the insects they lure and trap. But im pretty sure its been mentioned that they evolved starting as monsters that learned how to parrot the word "help" in the dark to lure humans like a pitcher plant evolved luring in insects using nectar.
Luckily there is an arc in frieren that will tackle demons ability to coexist and if thats actually possible but I just find it funny that twitter people start to question the morality of killing demons once they look a lot more like cute anime girls regardless of the fact that they are surrounded in decapitated bodies they enslaved and have them serve till their corpses decayed.
Ohhh Hypocrisy my friend, civvilization's greatest virtue.
Well, who cares? It's just twitter.
I think a good Example for something similar to this is the game "Prey" from Arcane in 2017.
The Alien lifeforms, the Typhon, are intelligent yet there is no way to communicate or reason with them. They only kill humans, not even out of malice, they just do, they don't even "see" humans as humans or living beings they don't recognise us as something similar to them, and a reason why is because they Lack mirror neurons, which specifically allow us to have Empathy with another living being.
It's a bit more complicated than just that, but I think the Story of Prey is worth having a Look at when trying to understand the demon problem in Frieren.
She received a spoonful of her own medicine, Frieren just kill her in the same way that she killed all those warriors, forcing them to behead themselfs. (and Twitter isn't even a reflexion of the real world, just a shadow).
@@TheRealJohnux That is one hell of a good example and it is as I rationalized the situation, however it seems that the demons are developing some degree of sensibility and even empaty which can be found in their "sense of honor and pride" and are able to recognize humans as sensible beings and even form some sort of families (you can argue the three demons which worked so close together were a sort of family).
However they are still far from feeling any empathy, they are half way between your example and a being capable of empaty like a human, however even humans are able to turn off any resemblance of empaty even at dealing with our own kind so you can't expect more from a literal alien like the demons in this anime, I think Frieren's approach is valid kill them until the demons prove that are something else than a dangerous predator.
Whenever people feel bad about a demon being killed, it just shows how absolutely effective they are at what they do.
So they are tricking even if no one is watching? Like Aura?
You're right. I dunno why some people defend demons like did they even watch and listen to the show?
@UI_Marx I am certainly not defending them. I'm just trying to figure out how they function and not just rely on Frieren's words on it.
How much of what they say or do is deception and how much is them being genuine. They are clearly capable of autonomy, intelligent thought, and communication beyond mimicry, so i don't think I'd class them as beast since they pretty much have all the qualities of intelligent life, besides empathy.
@@RoamingTrend exactly like Aura actually, much like it was shown of the little girl demon in the flash back who called out "mother" in order to fool human, Aura is mimicking human begging for their life as a response to getting cornered, most likely how she got away from the hero 80 so years ago lol
@@RoamingTrendstop defending literal demons bro.
9:18 - she's not bored, she's resigned. Because *she*, but *only she* knows what's going to happen next, but because everyone was set on ignoring her, she is just waiting for them to learn the lesson the hard way. Plus maybe 1% curiosity that maybe this might be an exception to the universal rule she knows.
She keeps hoping for an exception, even when facing Aura, she states she's glad that Aura is just a monster, that she wasn't wrong about that
3:00 What you mean We didn't feel much for Qual? He was a great genius magical inventor and despite his bestial look he had quite a calm conversation with Frieren before his final fight, his annihilation is a great loss, not only did he invent Zoltraak, but he instantly started analyzing the new defensive spells developed against it!
'His dead'? Come on, man.
@@30noir fixed: s/dead/annihilation/
Yeah way more empathy for him than the demons
for Qual, its less about feeling bad for his death, but more respect for how smart he was. He was still a monster that had to die, but one can still respect him for his genius regardless.
A great loss for demon kind you mean. A boon for us humans.
The main difference between Demons and Frieren, and Elves by extension, is that we are not in a Predator-Prey conflict. In the context of the series, Demons may be considered some big predators, but elves... are more like a big herbivore, powerful enough to be considered a menace to them and us. But as we do not place any danger or place in their food chain which is why it makes sense that they show this indifference towards humans because, probably, during their heyday elves could go their quite lengthy lifespan and never need to get in contact with a human so their society developed with different values than us but at the same time no animosity
Unlike demons who never go into isolation to survive, they always instigate violence.
Demons are as bad to humans as humans are to pigs or cows
Elves aren't herbivores at all in this anime . Frieren eats more meat than literal heavyweight fighters 😂. But whatever you said is true. Elves aren't looking to kill humans just because, or trying to wipe them out .
Elves aren't herbivores at all in this anime . Frieren eats more meat than literal heavyweight fighters 😂. But whatever you said is true. Elves aren't looking to kill humans just because, or trying to wipe them out .
@@Some_guy_passing_byblud didn't understand analogy
Aura isn’t evidence of anything, because most creatures will react to dying. That and Aura is dying to her own pride, which is basically her eating crow.
Frieren has been doing this for a long time, and she knows that Aura has been beheading people for a long time. To put it bluntly it’s hard to feel bad someone you know has been lopping heads off left, right and centre.
That’s most of the issue with feeling for the demons, because we’ve seen it backfire. The little girl is pretty much the key example; she looked happy there, but didn’t compute how to live among humans.
It’s not they don’t emote, but their emotional and logical reasoning is not the same.
The difference is that Freiren is that she can be reasoned with, she did let the demon child try to live. She’s able to reflect and the entire premise is regret, and loss.
pride is an emotion
The difference is which one benefits us humans. That one is good, if we don't like her, she's bad
The entire point was that even you have to kill them you should not be happy that you do.
The point isn't that Aura didn't need to die, it's that Aura is not a beep boop robot that lives only to lie and kill and has no brain in her head. A demon doesn't feel or even understand all the emotions that humans possess, but they do feel fear, survival instincts, pride, moral outrage (even if it's outrage at something humans don't care about), curiosity, confusion, contempt, anger and so on. They even seem to feel happiness. They're smart enough to talk to, but beyond a basic statement of facts (the sky is blue, cats eat mice, if you shape mana like this it makes a fireball) the conversation will inevitably fail for reasons the demon can't control. The reason they have to die isn't because they're literal demons from hell that only exist to make others suffer but rather that the values and minds they possess make them incompatible with human civilization. Which is a little tragic: It's a thinking feeling being, but there can never be anything but conflict. Demons didn't CHOOSE to be what they are, so wiping them out is a bit of dirty business. Necessary, but unsavory.
Basically, don't feel bad for Aura. Feel bad that Aura could never be anything better than Aura, even if she tried.
Yea alot ppl said they lack emphathy not lacking of all emotion
The difference between Frieren and Demons is that Frieren has empathy, in no moment is this clearer than when she realized that she had been wasting time that humans don't have much of and missed out on knowing a person who managed to know her in less than one one-hundredth of her life.
She balls her eyes out like a child, and I can feel for her, my grandmother didn't live far into my childhood and when she left I balled my eyes out for the same reason... I, in a childish way had taken her presence for granted and hadn't bothered to know her while she was alive, only learning more about her from those who are left to remember her.
Demons in Frieren have no such empathy and are thus in some sense not deserving of our empathy.
Tough we can pity them with our capacity for sympathy.
+ We have seen countless times Frieren doing selfless acts, while demons only act in self-interest.
@@pushqrdx True, we can even see in her encounter with Aura that she tests Aura's capacity for empathy and doesn't even get sympathy in return.
Frieren entertains the thought that she might be wrong about demons before she KYS's that demon's ass.
Pitying them is playing into their trap because it ensures their survival. And they'd come back to finish the left overs later
@@NameHolderEQ There is a type of pity that doesn't fall prey to their machinations.
It's the pity of how they're eternally bound to their lesser monster nature.
We may pity the majestic lion's need to hunt, but we don't fear it less... it is a predator after all.
@@DKannji yah but that pity is a privilege in seeing them from a distance, no such privileges exist when confronted by such a beast
"Do you feel the same way when you're seeing Aura's death?"
*Literally a batallion of people beheaded by her in the background*
"I'm on Frieren's side."
*Frieren standing over a pile of dead demon corpses*
Your point?
@@RoamingTrend Comparing people to demons just because they look similar is ridiculous. They are escentially walking human form mimics. No remorse should be had when dispatching them, they have none for humans.
@RoamingTrend
Yes, one side is literal demons that deserve to be annihilated.
Though if you are a nihilistic bug man, of course it's all the same to you. Morality, right and wrong, are alien concepts to you.
@@RoamingTrend Demons evaporate when they die. That just the authors trying to pull our heart strings to feel bad for them
@@RoamingTrendwhat a shit retort
9:20 Frieren's expression here appears in my opinion as "I know what you are, I'll sit this out, you haven't hurt anyone yet but I've seen how this plays out already". She has seen situations like this before likely and she's stoic about it but I'm sure she has no faith in the demon not causing harm eventually.
She has enough emotional intelligence to know that if she goes after the demon girl before it does anything, she will be seen as the one in the wrong. So she waits to let the humans experience the consequences of their actions, not out of pettiness, but out of necessity. And with how long her species lives, that waiting time was nothing.
And perhaps in a very very small corner of her heart, she was holding out a sliver of hope that this demon could be different. Basically wishful thinking.
She definitely also used that situation as an example to teach her party as well as the rest of the village the consequences of even having the thought of empathising with a demon like “See? this is what happens when you have the if we kill them will be no better than them mentality, it will only get you and others killed”.
@@andrewsanusi8462
It's not the "if we killed them we wouldn't be better than them" mentality that was the issue. Notice that before the demon say "mama" Himmel was ready to cut her with his sword, so he didn't necessarily have a problem with murder.
Their problem is the belief that demon can change and defy their nature. The belief that just because demon can talk that we can understand eachother.
The lesson they learn is "even if a demon looked like child, acted like a child, and WAS a child, it's still gonna kill people and there was no redeeming it, even if it wanted to be redeemed."
Case in point, the demon killed the village head and wanted to give his daughter to the family of the child that she killed with the intention to get along with the villagers.
I think she's lived long enough to know when to step aside and let people learn with their own blood the knowledge they dont want to accept from a 1000+ y.o., she just hung around because you need a spell to kill demons (i think the anime meant it like that), and she personally dont mind sticking around; maybe was wondering if this little experiment would bring results (willing humans and willing demon trying to disprove the general notion that demons are pure manipulators looking out for themselves only), but as long as it lasted, it only cemented her own knowledge to be true: demons cant keep good relationships out of cooperation or good will, they are indeed the ultimate sociopaths and psychopaths and killing has little more trouble or purpose than allowing themselves to remain alive longer
As someone who has done a lot of group projects, I can confirm this is what she feels.
As fact a demons are also one of main reasons why Elves are going extinct. Elf are one of oldest sentient races in this world and also very powerful. After demons gained intelligence and started to form organized structures they begun from elimination of largest treat. And because Elves realized too late that demons are treat their civilization was wiped out and all remaining Elves are just remnants without means to restore their race.
They need a breeding program. Screw romance just start making kids.
@@atomicskull6405 I think the elves would rather go extinct than go 1984 mode
They are idiots serie could easily get knocked up by eld survivors and rebuild the race instead she decides to lead and lent out spell tomes to humans that will only last 100 years or likely less.
@@sebas8225 Well the thing is, humans can never catch up to longer lived races because they are comparatively short lived but humans also increase in ability and accomplish things at a much faster rate.
Well, there's still Frieren and Kraft at least, so there is a way to get more purebred elves. And depending on compatibility, half-elves might be possible too.
Frieren has one big, key difference from the demons she kills: she does not seek to kill demons. She spent a thousand years holed up in a hermit shack, living a peaceful existence, until Himmel showed up and pulled her into the fight against the Demon Lord. Every single encounter we see wit demons, they are the instigators and aggressors. Demons are always the ones who draw first blood I every encounter, and always are shown seeking to destroy humanity wherever they can. Frieren may be just as vicious and isolationist as the demons, but she is nowhere near as bloodthirsty. And that is the crucial line the series draws.
Exactly, Frieren would not go around killing demons if the demons hadn't instinctively killed her family. They are always the instigators.
That's the thing. Demons may kill without mercy, but they are not malicious. Macht kills others even though he was ordered to not bear malice towards others. Demons don't feel empathy, but they also don't feel malice or even sadism.
Infiltration of a city, under the guise of establishing peace, with the explicit intention of bringing down the city's defenses, in order to kill and/or eat everyone in it, simply because they can, and want to, is the definition of malicious.
Heck, Lugner even deliberately chooses not to 1-shot Fern out of a malicious sense of pride and wanting to see her in pain.
Malice doesn't require something as cruel as torture to be considered malicious.
Frieren also has what demons completely lack; empathy. She kills without mercy, because she has learned the hard way and seen several times where not doing that leads to.
This. It's even stated that they have no real need to consume humans, they just do it because.
Without really spoiling anything, the longest arc in the Frieren manga explores this topic very broadly and gives us a much better insight to how demons operate. They bring up topics such as convergent evolution--wherein demons evolved from looking like monsters like Qual to more humanoid shapes because it was evolutionary advantageous for them to do so--as well as their inborn psychopathy--that, if they had the ability to feel empathy for their prey, they would go extinct. It's the best arc in the manga but unfortunately will not be covered within this first 28 episode season. I hope it is animated one day because it is a fantastic arc with very memorable and well-written antagonists.
macht arc is existential af frfr
I don’t feel like there’s that much to it, yes it’s a narrative choice to portray an entire group of beings as evil, no different from the goblins in Goblin Slayer;
but so long as they’re always antagonistic, there’s no sense in differentiating or sympathizing w/ them w/ their intelligence, personality, origin story etc. there should at least be demons in conflict w/ one another otherwise how would there ever have been a Demon Lord?
You mean the El Dorado one, no? Ngl. it felt kinda exhausting to me at times but I gotta agree that Macht and the whole scenario was very well written.
@AzureRook That is part of what makes them intrigguing, the way you are treating them is very human. You see even this early on, and even more later, that they don't think like us and conflict is easily solve trought a by desmostrotong their superiority, not unlike lions or wolf or other pack and/or territorial animals. It is not in their nature to add a whole other layer of personal fealings to their conflicts. They are shown persuing their personal interest and obsecions above almost anything else but only as along as it doesn't threaten their survival.
@@CanizalesAJ sure they seem individualistic in how they pursue their own interests but then what make them more evil/dangerous than elves? If they also have a power hierarchy like humans why wouldn’t similarly strong demons compete w/ each other?
I feel like it’s just a shortcoming of the author to not have more meaningful conflict around demons because some writing troupes are unavoidable; why make [insert fantasy race here] different if they’re not relatable/understandable in some way? unless being completely alien was the point all along
9:10 I read Frieren's face as someone whos warnings have been ignored and is just waiting for the inevitable disaster to happen.
I think the read on a bored expression on the Friren's face, when she looks at the demon girl go about her business, says: "I've seen that a dozen times. It's only a matter of time until it ends badly"
My empathy for monsters in fantasy stops when it's in their nature to kill indiscriminately. They may have a desire to live, but they have an equal desire to kill. I also can't feel sorry for a species that weaponizes empathy. The demons are shown time and again to have been given a second chance, and they only use that to kill. There is a distinct difference between demons and elves/dwarfs/humans in fantasy. The elves/dwarfs/humans all coexist with empathy (there is always conflict, that's just normal). But demons have been shown to not be capable of empathy or coexistence.
I guess it's a credit to the writer that you feel so sorry for demons begging for their lives. They do that to garner mercy so they can strike again later.
I find it hilarious how almost no one decided to have this debate with goblins in goblin slayer, despite the show making clear thst maybe a "good" goblin was a possibility , but not one that was worth the risk
@@elisehalflight... so you find it hilarious that no one will scavange for food in a putrid cesspit, despite the possibility of actually being food in there? That's the point, there *CAN* be good goblins, but you won't find them with the ones that GS usually fights. Hell, there is an ambiguity in the anime (not manga/ln) that the Rhea that taught smol GS to be a goblin, as he most certainly looks the part.
Completely agreed. When even the ones who truly attempt to go against their nature still willingly rebound and slaughter again I have no sympathy.
@@TheKueiJin I find it hilarious that everyone is so concerned about the demons and not the goblins despite both being an existential threat beyond reasoning in their respective works, and I am pretty sure that is in great part because the demons are charismatic.
@@elisehalflight Demons, like Aura, look cute. Goblins do not. That's how effective demons are as predators.
3:21 fear is a self preservation mechanism essential for survival, you hardly find a linving being that can't feel it
Frieren is NOT like the demons, if we compare them both want something, demons power and frieren spells, frieren would never hurt anyone for to archive her goals, she dosent even overpowers the guards when she gets pinned not even infront of the thing she hates the most. Demons are unfelling and Freiren is desensitized, having hempaty for them is the human reaction and is exactly what they exploit, it speaks better of freiren showing her determination, resolution and how she is really wise.
Yeah that's my biggest gripe about this video is that he compares Frieren to demons. they are not equal in any way really. I can see his points on not enjoying things being killed. But Frieren is not a mindless demon only killing for her goals.
It's funny how the demons in frieren even manage to deceive humans in our world on a meta level.
3:07 hmm, nope. Nothing at all. The demons themselves explained what their nature is, and we don't only see them in the perspective of Frieren, the village flashback showed us that even Himmel (The most kind, gentle, understanding, sympathetic human we've seen) learns and understands this concept since he experienced it first hand with the demon that ATE THE LITTLE GIRL and only mimicked human behavior to extend her own life.
In Oblivion, there is a Daedric quest where you kill the leaders of 2 prominent families in a particular town and frame the other family, so that the 2 families will kill each other. Why are you doing this? Free sword, of course. Oh, and so long as you're not caught doing this, you get fame for this quest, not infamy. "ATE THE LITTLE GIRL" Only one? That's certainly less than half the town, I believe.
The people who feel bad here is because Aura is a cute anime demon girl. Why didn't these same people feel bad for Qual? Poor guy was sealed for 80 years and was killed within minutes of breaking the seal.
Aura had been terrorizing the borders and desecrating corpses for 29 years
@@MahiMahi-yu5jo Funny because some people do, though. Nice try.
Honestly I just enjoy the display of power. Even if both were human that wouldn't change. In the case when both sides willingly engage in a battle to the death there appears a brutal honesty in their interactions. It is no longer a question of morality only of ability.
@@stalwartteakettlepotato9879 Well, yes, when Pope Innocent IV tried to pray for Guyuk Khan, the Khan honestly did not understand the gesture.
The demons in Sousou no frieren are just psychopaths with horns. Frieren did nothing wrong
Yes purge the demons haha!
They are more like animals with high intelligence.
Also remember, war with demon costs one third of human population. Demon King's fall cause them slowing down, but there are still many remnant
The problem is, actual psychopaths are not all serial killers. They lacks of empathy, but they can understand concepts of ethics, and adapt to society. I once see a diagnosed phycopath guy describing himself as a grown up peter pan. There are no long-term goal, no ambition for him, but he says that he chase his pleasure like watching movies after seeing a cool trailer or buying a nice shiny car. His job is a tool for that, Happiness is just a word for him.
And if demons are same as that, then they could accept Epicureanism*, humankind and demons can coexist.
*Epicurus sees that the goal of life is avoding pain and being happy. But it does not mean 'Drink, f*@k, kill whatever you want'. This will make a debt so you will more suffer later. So you have to learn the balance. Just consume what you need so body will not be in pain. Be calm and meditate so your sprit will not be in pain. If you learn the balance and have happy life, sometimes you can enjoy luxuries but turn back to your routine.
Of course the problem is luxuries to demon meaning killing and eating more people, but if they live that long, well The war of humans will be their party.
Lol psycopaths under human feeling and know how to used them demon do not,as the series said they know how to act like they do.
You have to keep in mind some details are lost in translation. For example, the very well-defined separation between "mamono" (monsters) and "mazoku" (demons). There are actually many terms to signify monsters and demons in Japanese, but this show is very consistent in that demons are always mazoku, and monsters are always mamono, and they are two very different set of creatures. Mazoku are humanoid and can speak human language. Mamono can have many forms, be it animal-like or vegetable-like or even humanoid, but they can't speak human language. That's a particular trait unique to mazoku so that's how you know we're dealing with a demon rather than a monster.
Because the translation is not always accurate, there have been some cases where monsters are called demons or the other way around. That might make viewers believe monsters and demons are basically the same thing when that's actually not the case at all. In fact, some enemies you yourself called demons in this video are actually just monsters.
Anyway, the point is, always keep in mind that demons and monster are totally different things, and that what defines demons the most and sets them apart from monsters is their ability to speak human language.
As for the topic of the video, demons are pretty complex creatures. Yes, they don't only speak to deceive humans. That was a mistranslation too (there are many mistranslations in this show). But that's not really important. What's important is that they're brains are just different from humans, so there are emotions they simply can not feel. Not all emotions, obviously, just some of them, but unfortunately, the emotions they lack are exactly the ones they would need to be able to coexist with humans, like empathy or remorse/guilt. They can kill children and won't feel anything at all.
Also, while they are intelligent creatures, they do have an strong instinctive impulse to kill humans. They might be able to hold back for a while, but eventually they will kill. They just can't suppress that urge forever. They are ultimately very tragic creatures.
this is the only sane take in the entire comment section
In the manga it is mentioned that demons cannot really feel feelings and if they do they are too weak to even notice them (spoiler alert) later a demon who believed in coexistence between humans and demons and that his goal was to be able to feel anyone emotion (this ended up making him one of the greatest threats to humanity) and ended up dying without having been able to feel anything.
its frieren who says this and she's rather biased and unreliable, we can see demons having feelings later.@@caromar2196
And is that a problem? You'd be surprised how valuable the ability to kill humans is in human society.
They only speak to deceive humans was a mistranslation? Do you know / remember a better translation in that scene ?
I would say the difference is in direction. Frieren learned to be cold and antagonistic towards demons through experience, while demons are born that way. And when not around demons frieren does display genuine empathy.
Good observation. I was simply puzzled what would make Frieren morally superior to a demon, especially from a demons perspective. They both lack empathy towards one another, both are willing to deceive and only to seek to destroy one another. 😀 there is nothing wrong with that in an existential conflict, you kill the other so it doesn't kill you.
@@RoamingTrendif you watch eps 10 of the series (told by flamme the legendary mage), you'll remember some important points about the demons world, it's an unforgiving world for demons with little mana (means weak demons), so from the wording its clear that demons are cruel and devilish even to its kind,
of course that's not the case with frieren and elven race (if you read the manga you'll understand further).
@@RoamingTrendtbf I don't think it is particularly an argument about moral superiority, as demons don't even bother with morality in the first place
@@RoamingTrend the difference is that the demons would kill Frieren even if she wasn't trying to kill them.
@@RoamingTrendbut think about it this way. Demons want to pretend to make amends to humans through peace but yet to them humans are nothing but food and they know that humans will react greatly if they are encountering a demon. Presenting themselves as humans with horns not only will make people hesitate in killing them but you will empathize with them.
A smart later on in the manga will confirm that demons do in fact not feel any emotion asides getting their pride torn to pieces that's why they are angry. Their mana is their pride and them losing is like dying that's why aura cried before dying. That's why johan 2.0 was so angry after being bested by mere disciples that are talented. They hate things that bests their efforts to rise in greatness. Like geniuses and prodigies. I mean johan 2.0 keeps on yapping about it too
What gives Frieren the moral high ground ? Here's my answer to that.
A key difference between the demons and Frieren is that, unlike the demons, she doesn't go out of her way to hurt others. She didn't mind spending centuries minding her own business before Himmel and his party arrived at her shack.
Unlike the demons, she doesn't see the humans she interacts with as being prey. She's aloof around the humans she travels with, but she cares about them. She's just clueless about the best way to show how she really feels.
Having empathy is an essential part of human hature, but there is a catch: if you're not careful, your empathy will be used against you. This is what demons do in Frieren's setting. In the real world, this something psychopaths and sociopaths do whenever they can.
In fact, sociopaths and psychopaths are "defective" humans who not only have no empathy for others but also can't feel strong emotions, except for one: fear.
Aura's reaction when she realizes she lost to Frieren and is about to die is very similar to how real life sociopaths react when faced with the fact that they're about to die. They get desperate and emotional because the only thing they care about, which is themselves, is about to be destroyed.
Meanwhile, in Elder Scrolls, the Dark Brotherhood is one of the most rewarding joinable guilds. "Have you not heard of the Dark Brotherhood? Of the _remorseless_ guild of paid assassins and _homicidal_ cutthroats? Join us, and you'll find the Dark Brotherhood to be all that, and so much more. We are, more than anything, a union of like-minded individuals. We _kill for profit, for enjoyment, and for the glory_ of the Dread Father, Sithis. We are family, with bonds forged in blood and death."
the demons dont go out of their way to hurt others, they eat humans to survive
I think they are more like narcissists. About Frieren moral ground. She interacts with humans, but not with demons. She just kills them out of self preservation. They do the same most of the time. If I was a human there I'd be thankful, but just because it benefits me
@@edgbarra Also, depends on your career. All of your words presuppose the fiction that humans don't want other humans dead.
@@Jawich45 almost extinct elves would beg to differ about demons not "going out of their way to hurt others"
The difference between frieren and the demons is that one group is an aggressor and the other is not. It's pretty clear cut
Except that Frieren was going to kill first, ask questions later. Pretty sure that's an aggressor.
@@RoamingTrend not when experience has taught you, time and again, without exception, later proven right, that the only reason they do this is, in fact to undermine and expose a civilian population to untold horrors. Then, it's only prevention.
@@RoamingTrendOnly ever in response to the actions of those demons though. She never once seeks out a demon to kill them.
@@RoamingTrend There is a difference between a person who kicks off a racoon that has bitten it multiple times before and a person who sees a racoon for the first time, then randomly kicks it.
Frieren's aggression is from experience, Demon aggresion is pure malice
@@RoamingTrendjesus christ dude 😂
4:41 Precisely, that's the problem with your approach. Demons aren't a humanoid race, they're monsters that have taken on a human appearance. And it's this nuance in particular that makes all the difference.
Aura isn't crying because she's afraid of dying, but because as a being made of pure individualism, her ego has taken a blow. Frieren deceived her and forced her to kill herself (something she used to do to the people she killed, by the way). Demons can feign empathy but not modesty, because that's how their hierarchy works. It's just the strongest's law. And in addition to their unabashed individualism, they have overinflated egos.
Not having empathy for them doesn't make you inhuman, but it does make you someone who knows what he's dealing with.
why cant she be also afraid of dying? every animal on this planet is afraid of dying and will avoid it. And as described in manga - Demons are evolved monsters - another species, not a magical lifeform. because, if they wouldn’t be afraid of dying they wouldn’t have a “follow the stongest” instinct.
Oh no, she's afraid of death, every living creature is. In humans people with severe APD are exactly like her, they are the center of their universe and everyone else is just an object to be used. But they can certainly feel fear and sadness for themselves.
to add. even predators have survival and self preservation instincts. aura is what happens when said monster/predator is sentient/self aware and can voice that instinct out (fear of death related to said survival instinct)
Every significant demon we see so far shows a somewhat melancholic feeling when they're dying. Still, while they feel scared and sad when dying, they can't realize / aware this is how their victims felt
Demons definitely are a humanoid race. I mean... just look at them, they look very human. And that's what defines a humanoid race: A non-human race that has human characteristics (like walking upright). However, it is a human "flaw" (at least in this case) that we automatically attribute human characteristics to humanoid things. It's very easy (as this video shows) to accidentally attribute things like empathy or morality (any system of morality, not just general human one) to humanoid or intelligent races.
Trend says that he's not a fan of dehumanization. And while I feel the same, he forgets an important thing: Demon's aren't human. He sees a humaniod race, projects human attributes to them and is then disturbed when human social norms/morality aren't applied to them. They were not dehumanized, because they were never human to begin with.
And I want to highlight your thought, that the worst thing that happened to aura (or at least might have been) was the blow to her ego. While to us humans, Frieren's way of extermination seems excessively cruel, it might have been the more "moral" option in Aura's moral system. While Frieren did the extremely immoral thing of hiding her mana, she at least had the decency to make Aura kill herself, making it clear to everyone what happened. It might be more immoral to not use her position of power and instead resort to a much simpler, less dignified method of execution.
3:21 "Who is she trying to deceive anyways" Allow me to present the concept of "Shapeshifter's swan song", is a trope when a shapeshifter is about to die to turn into everything to try and find a way out, you can find an example in terminator 2. In the same way Demons may be trying to use anything at their disposal to try and survive, is not logical move, is a desperation move, in the hopes it may save them in some way.
9:18 she is waiting the inevitable conclusion.
What makes Frieren different from Demons?
Demons left alone will search humans to kill them. Look at Aura, she could have lived without that city, Demons don't need to kill humans, so going there and devicing the whole plan to lower the barrier is just a pointless effort to kill humans, again something they don't need to do for survival.
Frieren left alone will live 1000 years in a forest doing barely anything. RIght now Frieren is not moving around with the goal to kill all Demons, she goes to places she knows there is a problem that will arise soon (Quaal, Sword village) so she can clean up before there is victims, or target demons she finds in the way, but not going out of her way to find them.
I'm sure if Demons stop killing humans and lived in their own corner of the world most humans wouldn't care, kinda like how we know there is dangerous animals across the world but they aren't a danger to normal people.
But since they are an imminent danger that will seek them out, they need to be dealt with.
Demons have emotions, that is not a question, but have a blue and orange morality, the have no concept of good and bad as humans, they cannot comprehend humans, they only have a might makes right mentality, and they all consider humans to be weaker.
exactly, they are not just beeings . . . they are predators, as you said, aura could have lived, hell they even let her live once so she already had her second chance.
No she was just afraid of her own death. She can be a cold and heartless monster, while having felling's for her own being.
Daemons do have emotions just no empathy. The can feel good or bad depending on their personal wellbeing.
Ah, true. I guess I only subconciously recorgnized that. In John Carpenter's: The Thing, The Thing's last form is a pillar of flesh with tentacles, arms, a dog body, and a malformed human face with alien jaws coming out of the side of it. While previously it tried to remain as individual "identities".
The show doesn't seek to make Frieren human. In fact, it goes to great lengths to show she isn't human. Yet you're trying to imply that someone who can outlive the entire world seeing patterns and trying to stop unnecessary bloodshed is somehow wrong to do so. She's easily persuaded not to do the things she wants to. She's not disagreeable. She simply does what she feels she must, and what the story shows is consistently necessary
I certainly hope I didn't imply that. I don't think I even made any of those arguments. One of my comments was that frieren and demons understand the nature of this war while humans are still applying their ideology, which is why they keep getting tricked.
@@RoamingTrend How Frieren is different from demons? She threat Fern and Stark not as her subjects, minions or whatever, but as her family (while demons have no such concept)
@@RoamingTrend "I certainly hope I didn't imply that."
You certainly did and said so at 13:16
Now I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this was merely an analogy to show that more is at play here but since you never discredited this notion I can see why many a viewer would think you think of Frieren the same as a demon 🤣
@@BrutusAlbion this is just nitpicking at this point. The video clearly states how Frieren differentiates from the demons, especially in the emotional state that demons are inherently self centered with their preservation, whilst elves tend to be indifferent to their existence as a whole. he made a whole point about this. If viewers didn't get that part, they weren paying attention imho.
That's the main difference that is thrown around in the series a lot. The video also explains why demons showcase their mana all the time to intimidate other demons. Other demons either submit to the powerful one or perish if seeking conflict. There is no negotiation, there is no mercy, because there is no sympathy for others. The only times demons are shown to be emotionally concerned is when their life is at stake. Aura didn't cry because she seeks sympathy, she cries out because her death is imminent.
Demons take pride in power, which is why Lügner was angry at someone hiding their power - it's against their nature. It's why Aura is acting smug with Frieren, because she knows that Frieren is rumored to be strong and she sees herself validated by the fact that she is stronger, due to their mana. We could also interpret Auras fear at the moment of her death not as fear from being killed but pain from the misconception of her own power, the flaw in her very existence - that her pride was misguided. Therefore she might dread the fact, that she wasn't powerful. Because demons seem to get - what we would call - emotional to some extend when their power is undermined or questioned.
@@RoamingTrend then you need to learn to form words better dude, to me it looked like you LITERALLY EQUATED elves with demons based just on their lack of emotions, while ignoring little facts like devouring humans as part of demon diet.
"How exactly is Frieren different from demons" - She genuinely cares about those around her. She comforted Fern when she was sick, she cooked steaks for Starks birthday, heck the reason she's on the adventure in the first place is because she regrets not getting to truly know Himmel. The demons in Frieren wouldn't be able to understand any of these actions and decisions because they fundamentally can't. Every action that the demons take that would garner sympathy for them are copied, Lügner copied Graf, Aura copied the soldiers she made commit self-die, and the demon child copied the child they ate. They only copied these actions because it would preserve their own life, not because they truly were grieving or afraid.
I think you can sum up the shortcomings with your argument like this: Feeling no empathy for a psychopath does not make you a psychopath!
The difference between Frieren and the demons is that she doesn't have the desire to eat people. Which is a pretty big distinction. Now is it possible to educate demons to not do that and survive off something else? Probably, but I personally wouldn't bet on it really working.
Demons see humans as prey. You can't teach a lion or a tiger to not eat prey. You most likely would have to raise a demon from the moment they were born to make them understand that they shouldn't deceive or eat humans.
@lisboah Yup, pretty much what I'm thinking. Even domesticated pets like dogs and cats still have that instinct to eat their prey. Heck, not too long ago, I saw a couple of dogs attempting to eat a barely born colt.
@@lisboah Macht had the desire to kill and eat humans under control and even liked them, but his desire to learn human emotional concepts when combined with his lack of a moral compass and no aversion to killing lead him to still do unspeakable things in pursuit of that goal.
From what I recall they don't even actually need to eat humans, but since they see them as prey and lesser than them they do so anyway. So yeah I don't see any way to teach one not to eat humans, even if they don't they'll commit atrocities elsewhere. It's simply in their nature.
No, it's not possible to 'educate' them. You can't educate an animal to def its nature, it has nothing to do with intelligence.
If you see a glimmer of humanity in the eyes of a tiger, then all you see is your own reflection in the heart of a ruthless killer.
Damn that quote goes hard
Yep, a whole lot of projection is what causes the Humanization of Non-Humans.
Tigers got to eat
Im 11 and this is deep
Sound like u.s.a citizen
Demons speak primarily to deceive humans. That's a fact. That's the main reason they're gifted with speech.
That said, when demons' pride is challenged and they don't understand something, they may do something other than deceive a human when speaking to them.
This doesn't mean, however, that we should empathize with them. Because if you do, they'll find a way to exploit this flaw to deceive you.
It's precisely because demons are masters at playing with people's empathy that a character like Frieren will never be fooled by them.
Emote even an ounce of empathy towards them and you risk putting your life in danger.
It's not worth it, and you'll be putting the people around you in danger too. Demons may be intelligent, but they're similar to the goblins in "Goblin Slayer", hurting humans by instinct when they don't even need it to survive in the first place. They're not a humanoid race as you might think, they're monsters that have naturally taken on human form.
well Goblins need humanoid females to create more offspring, also their instincts push them to expand their territory and consume more (they are pretty similar to humans in this regard but anyways), so they kind of need to hurt humans to survive...
But I guess as a human with a healthy degree of empathy to others of my own kind, I think it is justifiable to exterminate goblins in order to protect the human world.
I think that beyond the morality of killing or not a sensible being, we have here an clash between species, so it is justifiable to me that if demons attack my kind without any other motive than total extermination or domination, we should exterminate them all, until demons evol in a form that understand that not harming humans is the way to go, they learn to speak they will learn to coexist or be exterminated if not. XD
Have you read the manga? Macht is going to be a surprise if you haven't. He genuinely liked humans and wanted to find a way to coexist with them, but his lack of empathy and moral compass led him to do unspeakable "experiments" in pursuit of understanding what human emotional concepts are.
@@atomicskull6405you got tricked by the demons number one trick.
You believed their words.
@@atomicskull6405he didn't like humans, he simply despise violence and he is finding a way to end that violence. The problem is... He lacks or simply not capable of having empathy and he died not even understanding how empathy works. The character is tragic really but at the same time engaging.
@@atomicskull6405 Yes, I've read the manga.
And Macht doesn't try to understand human feelings because he loves them (which he thinks he does), but simply out of ego, because one day, a priest he killed told him before dying that he didn't understand. And since he doesn't understand human feelings at all, he took it for love when it was just a reflection of his ego which couldn't accept such words from a human.
@Roaming Trend has been charmed by the demon names Aura.
We need to save him.
Not jumping on a hate train or anything, but just to say, "A person having emotions doesn't mean they earn sympathy if the only one they can cry for is themselves", which was exactly the case with Aura.
I honestly like how demons have been portrayed so far in this show. Their behavior reminds me of that tale about the scorpion and the frog.
The demon child should have waited until the party left and then it could kill the humans as it pleased. But in the end it couldn't wait and ended up killing the village chief. And due to the lack of empathy, they couldn't even understand why the "peace offering" was rejected.
I hope this topic gets explored more in the show.
The funny thing is that its murder of the chief wasn't malicious in nature. It wasn't an evil plot, but solution it thought would smooth things over. A demon's mind is just that alien.
That's an incredibly apt comparison that honestly should be used more.
@@CKarasu13it may have been for the best actually, had the demon girl acted too smartly and she would've become a threat, also frieren would never allow such a freak to live alongside humans while she's gone she likely would've persuaded himmel and co to wait a week or two more to see if the demon girl wouldnt slip and then proceed to have her join their adventure. Because to frieren showing to himmel how evil any demon can be is of the outmost importance to her.
Not this season, but in season two the party will encounter plenty of demons as they go North and the subject will be largely explored. It is really well done. If you are curious, you can read the manga. Or wait until the second season :)
You just admitted that the demon child was _trying_ to make a peace offering.
3:10 Maybe, because I desensitized from watching a lot of stuff. But for me, its like see a smug serial killer that has been taunt everyone finally getting caught. So I basically feel nothing out of it.
3:50 About the "Their kind uses words only to deceive humans", I think the manga say it better "Words for them is means to deceive humans". Well yeah, sure they use it to communicate to each other still because if not we the audience won't understand what they talking and living being need a way to communicate after all. Plus "Deceive" doesn't mean you can't be honest, demon deceive human that mean in a way they will do anything to deceive them even say some truth to understand the human to deceive them. If someone able to deceive someone by always lying, I believe its not even possible.
I think the morality problem can be thrown aside when all demon see every single humankind as "Prey". If we not kill them, they will be the one killing everyone.
You mentioned that Frieren takes demons down "promptly", but there's an important caveat to that: she holds off on killing them as long as they are useful to her (and not hurting anyone else, etc.). Even in the example you gave, with her fighting Draht in the prison cell, she could have chosen to kill Draht at literally any moment after he stepped in. She chose to have a conversation with him and even let him attack her to see if he would reveal any useful information, which he did. Then as soon as he outlived his usefulness, she killed him. The same is true of Qual (using him as a tool for Fern's training) and Aura (Frieren played with the scales like a mana-powered fidget spinner for several minutes before finally launching Minecraft). Fern, whose views on demons are clearly heavily influenced by Frieren, also held off (briefly) on killing Lugner for similar reasons.
She gave Aura the chance to save herself and turn back. Maybe Fieren has more of an eye for an eye way of dispatching demons. You tried to kill me this way so I'm going to kill you in kind. Draht used his hands with wires and Frieren removed them and laid her hands upon him to kill him. Aura, she simply used the scales that Aura was using to try to kill her... Qual, with his magic... omshiroii, desu ne...
@@artboymoy I mean, we know from the flashbacks in Ep. 10 that Frieren declared war on all demonkind after demons killed everyone in her home village. So in a sense, it's "eye for an eye", but not on an individual basis. She's perfectly happy to kill any demon on sight if she doesn't have a use for them. See Ep 7, where she would have killed the demon girl without hesitation if not for Himmel, and where she was 100% ready to vaporize Lugner & co. as soon as she spotted them. Her default stance toward demons is clearly "shoot first, ask questions never".
That said, perhaps talking about it with Stark and Fern prompted her to put it to the test once more, because I think you're right that she gave Aura a chance to "repent". It's that moment in Episode 9 when they're talking about Frieren not using flashy spells because Himmel told her not to. And when Aura's response is to disrespect the memory of Himmel because Himmel is already dead, that reaffirms Frieren's conviction to kill Aura (and presumably all demons).
Other than Aura, the closest thing to mercy we've ever seen Frieren offer a demon is a "painless death".
You have very clever editing, many just put random clips up but i see you actually take time to find relevant things to display which is cool
I appreciate that
@@RoamingTrendoops my spelling wasnt very clever
3:46 I think you may be taking this a bit too literally. The point of this sentence is to say "Demons will say anything to get what they want, you can't assume they actually mean what they're saying". Hyperbole is a thing and often appears in sayings, proverbs, and lessons.
5:20 I agree that you're supposed to feel bad for the demon here because the ability to make you feel those emotions is the demons' greatest weapon. The true horror of the demon is that it is able to make you feel bad for it. They high-jack our empathy (normally a valuable, healthy mental response) and use it against us. I think the point of the scene is to make you realize just how terrifying this enemy is by highlighting your own emotions.
9:17 I read this expression as resigned. She's a patient person. She's not willing to cause a scene, but she knows that this will end badly and so she's just waiting for the other foot to drop. She's not suspicious because suspicion requires doubt. She's not angry because it's no use getting angry about every little thing. Eventually she will be proven right and she's just waiting to act.
Honestly am I the strange one here? As soon as I was given understanding of where these creatures descend from the idea of empathy was lost and I mostly just pitied them as creatures of instinct who would sabotage themselves.
No you are correct, from what we are shown so far they are exactly as described - monsters optimized for tricking and killing humans. It is only because of their appearance that there is even a question, if they were all monstrous/evil looking like the earlier examples nobody would care. Its like a combination of an intelligent parrot and a shark
That's my approach. The only path to the survival of demonkind or of any individual demon, ultimately, is to learn to coexist with humans. The Demon King was their last best hope of organizing well enough to resist the growing power and numbers of humans militarily. And the demons are incapable of even comprehending what they lack. They can give it a name, like empathy, but they cannot actually experience it, and thus cannot understand it. They are in a world that makes no sense to them, because it is increasingly dominated by humans. It makes no sense, but they still have the intelligence to recognize that it is killing them off.
Not being a demons, we can empathize and pity them for their situation, even as we can recognize that the residents of Frieren's world are entirely correct to hunt down every last demon for extermination.
My first reaction was to find them absolutely terrifying as a concept.
If left alone, I could Imagine the demons infiltrating governments and setting up entire countries for the sole purpose of raising and harvesting humans to eat. Like cattle.
I pity them like I would pity the livestock I need to kill to feed myself. Though the reality is that I don't need the death of demons to sustain myself; the demons are the predators who need to die so that they cannot kill me. They're actually worse than wolves, because wolves can be tamed and domesticated to live in happy, mutually beneficial coexistence with humans. Wolves and dogs can eat things other than humans, but demons seemingly can only eat humans... or are compelled to kill humans, since we've never seen one eat a person, we've only heard an accusation that a girl demon ate a human girl.
Same
It is shown that demons can actually ""learn"" to feel human emotions and some even seek out to try it themselves. However, they are not capable of truly understanding what the emotion or feeling truly is. Inside the demon's head there is only logical thinking, sorta like an AI where it mimics human thoughts randomly based on patterns and information. This is most prominent in the next arc (in the manga only by the time of this comment).
On a side note, Frieren is also shown to be capable of understanding human emotions, though it just takes her super long to process them. Elves in the show are portrayed similar to demons in that they are apathetic. However, we have seen Frieren express humanly traits such as sadness, compassion, and even love. Frieren in her mind really loves Himmel, however she does not understand that feeling for a very long time. Her adventure with Fern and Stark is also partly derived from her love for Himmel (this is mainly my interpretation).
SPOILERS ALERT:
One of the seven sages of destruction: Macht tries to force himself to learn human emotion, even forcing himself to put on a bracelet that will kill him if he shows any malice or dark intentions. Then after Match turns the entire city to gold, he still is not slain and has continued to spread the gold further beyond the city boundaries. This shows that demons are quite literally incapable of learning or even attaining some human emotion or aspects, they only see things as black and white, sorta like what Frieren sees demons like. It is also interesting that Macht still remains loyal to his human master even to the end, despite turning him and his city into gold.
For me its quite easy not to feel pity for Aura
in the shot when she beheaded herself and in all scenes where she was shown there are behind her tens of humans . men who cannot find rest for her magic tool . endlessly serving her . without rest .
its quite easy you know
Same sentiments. I cannot feel sympathy with those undead humans behind her. She violated somebody's loved ones, so she doesn't deserve pity in my eyes.
I don't believe this is as much a foreign concept as some people make it out to be. In fact I believe we know exactly what it's like. We feel for Aura, but we know she isn't real. She's pixels on a screen. Just as Frieren feels something when presented with the illusion of Himmel, yet she destroys him despite feeling something because she knows he's not real. Just as we can feel for Aura despite knowing she's not real. And just as Frieren can destroy Aura, because she too knows Aura isn't a real person.
@@viktoriyaserebryakov2755 I don't "feel" for Aura .
What is there to feel ?
Just because she looks nice you're going to "feel" for her ?
She's a demon plain and simple .
@@larkalfen9510 Liar. Everybody feels for something that appears human and can beg. Just as one feels for fictional characters. You didn't listen to a damn thing I said.
@@viktoriyaserebryakov2755
What is there to listen to
You were fooled
I was not
Simple as
I don't think anyone would argue that demons lack a sense of self-preservation. Like the demon girl in the flashback said, the only reason that demons invoke the idea of "parents" is because they sincerely don't want to be killed and they have recognized that this sentiment is effective at achieving their goal. Qual doesn't bother to dress as an aristocrat like Lügner because he's too busy practicing Zoltrak.
Putting that aside, you make an excellent about the show's attitude towards demon. While demons are presented as unambiguous threats to humans, the show doesn't glorify the killing of them. A regrettable necessity, more like. You it perfectly when you compare "Himmel /the hero/" and "Frieren /the slayer/".
Gotta like how thousands of anime-only Frieren enjoyers asuming stuff about demons, thinking it is still a mystery up to debate, when the very next arc after where the anime ends tells you everything you need to know about demons.
Frieren DOES feel bad about killing demons, except just a handful of them. This is not really a spoiler, because just from the anime alone its pretty obvious that she doesn't really treat demons purely as unreasonable pest like she said, as she at least resonate with them about the sense of time, and most importantly, their passion of magic, when she clearly shows interest talking about these topics more than she needed to, and replying more than out of politeness, when she fights Aurora and the inventor of Zoltraack, I'm not even talking about later encounters in the manga.
The series is HEAVILLY emphasizing on characters acting differently to what they said regardless of the race/species of the characters. some characters do that out of kindness and thoughtfulness, some do it to deceive, either their brains are hard-wired to do so or they choose to do so; either to deceive the others or deceiving themselves to numb their feelings to do what they have to do, *"you gotta out-decieve the demons to defeat them".*
Edit: spelling.
You're just using spoilers to try and make an argument. It's natural for anime onlies to only use anime information to avoid spoilers and have an experience akin to the orginal readers of the manga.
@goatskin4487 It may not be obvious, but just from the show alone Frieren most definitely doesn't sees demons purely as unreasonable pest that are only capable to deceive people. The next arc just solidify this by having Frieren say this by herself, it's not a hidden detail or a plot twist.
There a grand total of 3 demons who tried their absolute damnest hardest to understand and coexist with humans, let's just say it did not go well.
It might be possible with mind altering magic other than that though it's impossible.
@@atomicskull6405I highly doubt that even that would work.
It probably would require biological and even genetic manipulation to make demons feel like humans. Like transferring their minds to a human body, creating a demon-human hybrid, etc...
Frieren's depictions of demons are probably the most refreshing they've been in a while in anime. Demons by the most original sense are creatures of deception and corruption, dating back to the olden times were their origins are seducing people to sin. Modern anime kind of just makes demons humans but with horns with no real reason why they'd look like people while not being humans in the first place.
In Frieren it's established that they look like people in order to garner sympathy and advantage, after all you won't show mercy to something that looks like a monster, but you will show it to something that looks and sounds like a person. That one scene with the demon saying "mother" while having no concept of family was really cool, since it plays into what would be a stereotypical thing to say in times of hardship being used as a shield instead by an enemy. In future arcs too, El dorado, it gets even better with their origins and psychology and physiology as demons plays into how they are more thought out than one might think.
Plottwist: human starting the conflict first.
well, no. Even in the manga it is very clear and heavily implied that the Demon King himself launched an invasion against the Unified Empire even after it became a shadow of its former glory, where its divided into multiple kingdoms from the South and a few city-states and villages in the Northern Plateu. As well as launching a surprise attack on the elves with a single command of exterminating them. Hell it was so bad that it was because of Flamme that humanity actually gained an equal footing against the demons. @@SapuTaro-nr5bl
If you’re going by the Christian sense. Demons or rather Daemons were originally more just spirits that could be good (agathodaemons) or evil (cacodaemons)
Well, even in the future story, we'll see a demon, a strong one that has a desire to understand human emotions,
he tried to learn it for decades, living closely with humans in a town, actively interacting with them, and having a friend that willingly helped him understand it, knowing the possible danger the demon could bring to his town.
but in the end, the demon still fails to understand human emotion.
The townfolks he had been living with for decades ended up being cursed with a spell he casts.
Also remember his ways of learning about guilt and malice is by activately Harming humans to see those emotions, as he is pretty agressive with his ways of learning
The sad thing is, he seems to actually have a grasp on it, but he never notice because it's very alien feeling to him.
@@GrEEnF1Re1 Well he had no moral compass or aversion to killing, but he tried, he really really tried very hard. He actually even liked humans.
@@atomicskull6405spoiler for those who haven't read
And like Frieren said, this is why Demon King very dangerous. He also want co-existence and understanding, but his method is through war and "cleansing" (elf village for one example). Humanity would long gone before he finally understand
@@atomicskull6405yeah, probably just like we could like some particular rabbit or a cow and let it live😅
OH you will love the Golden Lands part, about a demon who one day wonders how empathy works.
i love frieren, and also love how the demon concept is used, but i really would have loved to see world of frieren, with antagonists who are not those absolute evil beings who are irredeemable, because it would introduce a lot of ethical dynamics, maybe political conflicts, storylines like corruption of the good, emphaty towards the enemy, human flaws and atrocities they can commit under specific conditions, maybe showing both redemption, and also going to point where there is no redemption anymore... i love the complexity of it all, and would be cool to see more morally gray frieren, but i don't say this as a flaw, i love the current demon concept too, and i think it fits the tone, but if they want to use emphaty towards the demons plotline, or show a cruel side of frieren, demons being an absolute evil existence won't work, they will need to use other elements.
To me demons in the show are similar cancer cells in real world, they're disguised as you normal cells too, to trick your immune system. i wouldn't call them good or evil, they're simply exist in the world doing what they're programmed to do, like cancer cells, or some parasites, therefore there isn't much moral conflict. This anology would make frieren and her team like researchers and traveling doctors in my opinion.
In frieren, it's explained that demon's were beast's that at first doing things based on pure instinct, but then they're gradualy have some intelegences, sense of coordinations, and later some understanding of some emotions, but they lack's understanding of many basic's human emotions and understandings
While the demons in Sousou no Frieren are capable of selfish emotions (like Aura not wanting to die), it is still true that they are basically antisocial predators of humans. The scene with the demon child is a good example of this, as while she appears weak in that moment, she is actually powerful enough to effortlessly slaughter an adult man, who by all appearances would be stronger than a supposedly "weak and injured child". If Frieren and Himmel weren't there, that one demon would probably be able to singlehandedly massacre the population of that village.
I read the flashback scene as Frieren using the lives as innocent bystanders as a tool to teach Himmel not to trust demons, which was pretty bad in its own way.
I wouldn’t consider her THAT callous. It was Himmel’s decision, at the end of the day, and it wasn’t her position to call the shots. She had the exact same reaction in the present when faced with a city that was hosting demons as peace envoys; she accepted going to jail on the spot, and let things play out. She couldn’t just fight everyone to impose her ideals.
@@matilozano96 yes, you're right.
She said her piece, but you have to let people make their own mistakes.
There is an aspect of the lives of humans having less meaning to her though. Which is natural, in a way, for someone who lives so much longer. And the story being told is of Frieren overcoming that.
Nah. If I was an elf mage with tons of knowledge and the naive humans around me all want to spare the demon child. I would let them, but will warn them that they're very likely making the wrong decision and would get themselves killed. That's basically what Frieren did. She even stuck around for them.
I am basically an outsider among humans, they will never believe me about the demon child unless they themselves see how dangerous they are. Hell, the kid already ate a human child. It is unfortunate that someone else got killed but if they don't learn this lesson while I'm there, they never will once I left.
Either they reluctantly agree with me which would get them killed once the next demon child comes along (what if he's wrong?), I kill the kid without their consent which will get them killed when the next demon child arrives (we're not like that elf psychopath!) or I warn them and stick around until the demon child spazzes out and they get to see how different demons are to humans. (last chief got mogged by demon child, let's not fall for that again.)
Its animalistic emotion and base desire without a pathological understanding of pack mentality like humans, other sapients, dogs, elephants etc. All cooperation is mutual interest where both parties CAN and WILL kill the other if they so much as step out of line.
@@pokemonfanmario7694 So you can pet Demon in frieren?
I fully agree that demons have emotions. There's only so much you can mimic before you realize that you can't tell the difference. The fact of the matter is that demons in the show are not peaceful creatures that deserve our empathy. The only goal they have for understanding human emotion is how they can use it to kill more humans.
The only reason we feel bad is because they look like us, but there are real humans that do heinous acts like the demons and we can agree that they deserve the worse thing coming to them. So even if they have emotions, it does not mean they deserve our empathy.
I also don't agree with the idea of dehumanizing them (even if they weren't human to begin with). It gives them the priviledge that all animals have; and that is operating instinctually for the sake of survival. These demons are fully conscious, logical and aware of what they are doing, they prey on weaker creature to satisfy their pride. They are evil to the bone.
My point is we are allowed to feel bad, it shows that we empathy but f*ck 'em anyways
The difference between frieren and demons is that frieren c an change and grow thats what this show is about
3:09 You would 100% be eaten by demons.
The show makes it very clear that they are monsters, who evolved to use human language, so that they could more easily trick and eat said humans.
The fact that you're falling for their (in universe) evolved behaviour is really funny.
Well these human points makes us humans. The reason you don't feel anything when they are killed vs the human looking ones are something that's hardwired in us. To humans letting someone similar to us who shares same looks and values to us is far more beneficial for survival than a snak horse mix creature.
I like how this show pointed out the human psychology and how empathy works. A similar thing you can see in the game Undertale but there the message is more about you than the entire world. Example I absolutely broke into tears when i saw the player killing goatmom in the destroy everyone run on TH-cam. Because in the beginning of the game she showed is love like a mother to her child.
I think a reason why it might be so hard to wrap your head around it is that we have been conditioned by similar stories along the lines of "just because they look different doesn't mean they're not worthy of empathy". So when a show comes around that actually tries to make the point "just because something is humanoid, does not mean it has human characteristics", we tend to reject it.
And in the case of Frieren it's even more difficult, because the race in question actively uses this "flaw" in the human psyche and therefore tries to seem as human as possible, while being fundamentally different.
bro fell for the demon's tricks, would be eaten in no time
To answer your question, here's what I thought when Aura was forced to kill herself: "Get fucked, scum."
Frieren did nothing wrong.
While I agree that they certainly play up how deceptive the demons are at every moment and every turn, I think the way they portray demons in frieren is far more interesting than if they were some kind of morally grey villain.
Yes, they feel emotions. Yes, they use language to communicate. But it is also clear that they do not feel these things the same ways that humans do. They feel no connection to the people (or demons ig) around them.
Some examples:
In her fight with frieren, aura asks her why she isn't using flashy spells and destroying the suits of armor like she did 80 years ago. Frieren says it's because himmel scolded her not too, since it is disrespectful of the dead. Aura says that that's all the more reason to destroy them, since himmel isn't there to scold her.
This makes it clear that while aura understands the want to not be scolded or reprimanded or whatnot, she doesn't understand that there is a moral and emotional obligation to not do those actions anyway, since they aren't just. Demons don't have any morality, all they want is to survive and become more powerful. Frieren takes this as proof that demons are just as monsterous as she thought.
Another example, the flashback you discuss in the video. The young demon may have truly wanted to live in the village in peace. However, she has developed no attachment, no debt, no love for the man who was between her and death. She couldn't understand how the parents of the girl she killed felt, that she couldn't just replace their child with another. Neither did she understand that the chief's daughter loved him, and that it would bring her unfathomable pain to know that her father was killed.
We see multiple times that many different demons will use words to bargain their way out of dying. The little girl calls out for 'mother' right when himmel and frieren are about to deal a killing blow, because she knows that it makes humans not want to kill them. And in that way, she views that word as magical. The guy who tried to assassinate frieren while she was in the jail cell makes a last ditch effort to talk to her, calling out "wait!" right before frieren blows off his head. When lugner is surrounded by granat's guards and hasn't yet gotten what he wants yet (the spell to the barrier around the town so they can take it down and decimate the city) blatantly lies about having a father because he knows humans are emotionally connected to things like that.
While not every word that comes out of a demon's mouth is meant to be trickery, they most certainly do use it to try and get out of unfavorable situations.
There is this whole arc in the manga that goes into depth about the feelings, or lack thereof, of demons when they interact with humans. They are not 'evil' in the traditional sense because they can barely comprehend the idea that the their actions might be considered 'evil' to humans.
They absolutely have self preservation and feelings like fear when that is threatened. That is true of even animals. Aura looking frightened when she's about to cut her own head off is because she's scared of dying. It's also said that demons only have love for magic, and spend their entire lives trying to perfect a certain subset of it. They most certainly have emotions and goals, they are a sentient race after all. But they feel absolutely no remorse when killing people because it's not possible for them.
Super interesting stuff!
Some demons are more aware than others and some demons care more for their time being alive.
I think the difference between Frieren and the demons is that Frieren and those like her ARE capable of feeling and understanding the same range of emotions as humans, however due to her long lived life span she and those like her don't feel it the same way humans do. Fieren has lived so long that 50 years to her seemed like a weekend however once she realized that she wasted 60 years she could have used to get to know her friends better, she ended up breaking down in tears after realizing her mistake. So she is clearly capable of feeling regular human feelings, she just feels them differently.
Demons on the other hand don't seem to understand human emotions at all and seem incapable of feeling anything at all for humans much less each other and whatever they do understand they've been shown to mainly use as a manipulation tactic and have even self admitted that they don't actually understand the things they are saying but say it anyway since they know that it'll have an affect on the humans. They clearly have goals outside of survival, if they didn't then why did they go out of their way to try to take down a magical barrier protecting a city and later invading it with an army of the undead? Clearly they're not innocent creatures who just want to live their best life and Frieren has lived long enough and has seen enough to know that.
The thing about the Demon Girl is that she could do anything else. She could have run away, lead other demons to the village, kill everybody while they were sleeping, etc. But she chose to stay, and chose to try to "fix" what she understood as wrong: "I took a girl from that human -> i can sense that human's bloodlust -> I will give her another girl so she calms down". It isn't even founded in cold rationality because she couldn't even understand that her "fix" would ultimately be more dangerous to her than the angry woman.
Don't get me wrong, it's still monstrous, but to me its a clear indicative that the Demon Girl found confort in her life in the village and sought to keep it (albeit in a pretty fucked up way).
All things said, while peace may be possible (instead of total anihilation), i don't think coexistence can be an option.
Realistically the mother and father were no real threat to her living there, since the leader of the village said she can live there. While they have no understanding of family, they do understand hierarchy and that if a leader says something is how things will go ( in this instance they can see if she won't kill anyone) then that's what will happen. If she simply ignored them it would all eventually blow over. But it's in Demon's nature to kill, and so she did in order to replace what she "broke."
What's clear? It's not clear at all. For all you know, she just rationally concluded that a peace offering was in the interest of her survival, but lacks any understanding of humans to do so effectively. Or she could have lashed out in bloodlust, then fabricated an excuse when confronted. Nothing is clearly indicated here.
@@generalgarchomp333 yes demons understand hierachy but they view this also different. for demons, the strongest person will always be the leader. maybe she thought the griefing mother/father is actually more important because they have slightly more mana or just looked stronger, since they where younger than the village chief.
If you feel bad about a demon dying, it shows that you have empathy. What demons lack.
Is empathy a requirement to deserve existence?
@@Seifersythe No. As long as you can coexist peacefully with those that do have empathy, you are usually left alone.
Elves, while they have the capacity for empathy, are usually stoic and isolationist. And yet, it's the demons that tried wiping them out, not humans.
Do humans not deserve to fight back when faced with extinction or being treated like cattle, because another sentient race fails to coexist properly with them for lacking that trait?
It is right for any individual to strive for the survival of their species, thus I don't see either side as wrong, but I'm a human so obviously I chose to side with my race.
Also, other races like elves and dwarves have shown their capacity to reciprocate empathy in a non-callous manner, hence their coexistence with humans, to the point they are considered part of humanity.
Demons have proven their incompatibility, even towards elves(which they share a similar trait of mana potential). Thus conflict is inevitable to those that lack empathy when having neighbors that do.
They were even given plenty of opportunity to coexist with humans(even through peaceful isolationism), but they continue to threaten our existence regardless(Aura the guillotine and her underlings have proven that). They literally see humans as livestock/prey and guinea pigs for their magic experiments. And humans aren't pushovers but they still try for diplomacy first, hence why Lugner and the others are able to get inside that fortified city.
Yes... or else you have a cannibal that tortures murders and eats people @@Seifersythe
@@SeifersytheNo, but an alarming number of people in this comment section seem to think it is, they forget psychopaths exist and are just as much people despite not feeling empathy.
@@jadivodscalls into question who the real demons are lol. those who kill because it's the only thing they know, or those who rationalize and justify it?
Yeh your take's pretty fair, I think the only reason people are so heated on this is cuz all the terminaly online twitter users calling saying that if you think deamons are evil your a nazi or watheverver the heck
I think there's a point to examining the different reactions to dying of the demons. Lugner was very proud of his magic and valued it over all else, so he died in anger due to losing against someone who 'cheated' in the only thing he cared about.
Aura was a demon general who had an army and had survived the hero's party. She was proud above all else, and felt invincible with her auserlese. Frieren completely overwhelming her with the one thing she had dedicated her whole life toward made her feel small and insignificant again, making her feel fear likely for the first time since 80 years ago (Aura was said to have run away from the hero's party after being wounded by them).
Qual created the first piercing magic zoltraak which would go on to kill almost all human mages in the region that he was deployed in, he was an absolute unit in his time, and could replicate defensive magic the instant he saw it used. Imagine an engineer in real life that can build a car after seeing it once, that is absolutely unreal amounts of genius. He couldn't be beaten by the hero's (unlike the literal demon king), but was later oneshotted by frieren by his own spell. In his dying moments he is simply shocked he could be overwhelmed so easily, and that he was beaten by his own creation.
Out of these Lugner started out decieving humans but also spoke honestly after his cover was blown and he was confident he could beat his opponent without deceit, Aura and Qual were simply confident in their abilities or knew their opponents beforehand so they didn't even try to lie. It can be assumed that all three were somewhat genuine in their reactions when fighting to the death with the cast.
And finally the demon girl in the village. She is the most interesting because after failing to deceive the humans she says that "mom is a magical word, because it keeps you from killing us". Even though she never casted a spell the relation is there. Each of the demons talk about magic when dying, and being creatures composed entirely of mana it makes sense. They are more akin to a force of nature or wild beasts that are simply the apex predator for humans. A wolf is not evil when it slaughters an entire flock of sheep to eat only one, it's simply its nature. If the wolf was intelligent it would have killed only to feed, but being a beast it feels the need to hunt, even when there is no benefit to it. The demons in frieren are similar. Qual says that the appropriate reason for killing Frieren should be revenge for the demon king, meaning he didn't really care what reason it was he just wanted to do it. Lugner says he was happy it turned out this way after being exposed, because then he can kill everyone in town. The demon girl also doesn't even understand that humans see killing other humans as a bad thing, and thinks it's a great solution to just kill the chief so that the mother can have the daughter back. She also gets to devour the chief as a bonus of course. The demons simply work outside human morality, it's very tolkien like. There is no evil, just the absence of good.
I actually view Qual with greater empathy than the more human-like ones. Qual was more interested in learning than the actual act of killing humans.
Still hella evil ofc, but he could have laid another golden egg with his brilliance.
That's because Qual actually is not the same species as the demons. The correct translation for Qual describes him as a demonic monster. Not the same as the human-like demons that simply lack morality or empathy
They have pride, anger, and fear, but dont have empathy, you gonna have good treat when the story enter gold demon arc (if madhouse make the season 2, but you can always read the manga)
13:19 Frieren is very much capable of real altruism, demons are not. That's a pretty real and significant difference.
I totally agree with your point here. Killing demons is a necessity for survival in Frieren's world, but that doesn't make it wrong to feel bad for them. Demons are the agressors in this conflict, and it seems impossible to reason with them, but that still doesn't mean feeling empathy and/or sympathy for them is wrong. Demons may be classified as pure predators or parasites but they're still intelligent creatures and seem capable of enjoying life and as well as fearing to lose it. That is enough for me. They may be complete sociopaths one and all, but it's not like I believe sociopaths are underserving of life. Life just happens. Nobody deserves it and nobody is underserving of it.
Humans are absolutely in the right for trying/wanting to kill all the demons. Demons are incredibly powerful and dangerous with worldviews that seem utterly incompatible with humanity - or at least we've yet to see one in the series so far.
That won't stop me from feeling bad for all creatures that experience suffering.
Where's the limit then ? All creatures suffer, pretty terribly, and we arbritrarily choose to care about some and less about others.
The reason why it's problem that you feel bad for them is because it increases the chance of making a wrong decision when lives are at stake.
Saying frieren is morally the same with demons is absolutely insane. Frieren possesses the same capability to feel empathy for demons like the villagers did, however she, has lived for over a thousand years slaying demons and knows better than to trust them. In fact, she doesn't just feel indifferent towards them like demons do about humans, she probably hates them for massacring her village of elves.
While I agree that both Frieren and the Demons share a somewhat similar outlook on life and humans / people in general, I think it's rather shallow to say they're essentially the same thing. I've watched the anime in its entirety and not once have I seen Frieren kill, deceive or betray someone in order to achieve her goals or improve herself, while Demons seem more than happy to do all of those things from the very moment they're born. The most harmful thing Frieren ever did to someone else was being complacent and indifferent to their feelings, and even that she manages to overcome throughout the story.
Simply put: To say that Frieren is no better than the Demons she slay is to ignore every single kind and selfless deed she has done in her life. No Demon would ever even consider helping a lost boy in the forest just because they can.
Speaking of Gandalf. Yes, he told Frodo that profound speech about Smegarol. But did he hesitate to kill the orcs, goblins or trolls they met?
Because Smeagol's nature was corrupted, not innate. Good point.
Demons are irl psicopaths. No more, no less.
Here's the thing. The story has a framework of meaning. And within that framework, Frieren is the absolute ideal. Her judgment is corect by definition. Her reaction toward demons is what tells us everything we need to know about them. Every subsequent display of humantiy from the demons works to deepen the uncanny threat they represent in our mind.
> Her judgment is corect by definition.
It is, if you ignore the cases when she was wrong. As stupid as it is to take everything in postmodern deconstructive way, it's also stupid to take everything at face value.
Frieren is 100% in the right for choosing to exterminate demons on sight. The method she used to kill Aura was a deliberate act of karmic retribution. Kill Aura in the exact way she killed others.
Demons in this series are supposed to be an allegory. For real life psychopaths. Demons and psychopaths have a lot in common.
1. Incapable of empathy and biologically incapable of being good people.
2. Only capable of caring for themselves. Anything resembling caring for others is purely an act to get their victims to drop their guard. Any positive emotion besides pleasure in hurting others or self pride is purely an act to bait people into dropping their guard.
3. Naturally manipulative/deceitful.
In essence, psychopaths and demons are disgusting creatures that seek only to corrupt or harm everything they get their hands on.
From what the show says, demons are beast that are capable of communication. I think the way I saw it is as they are animals, and if you're willing to kill a lion for attacking you then its the same thing as killing a demon for existing.
13:20 c'mon that is a big stretch
One thing that shows the difference between Frieren and demons from episode 7 is in how the help the merchant. When asked why she doesn’t just fly the cart over the landslide she replies that it wouldn’t help the next people using the rode. Demons up until this point only care about themselves, not even caring about their own kind. Frieren has shown time and time again to do extra work because it is beneficial to others who she won’t even meet.
Dang, didnt expect this guy to actually fall for their deception
I didn't. I can tell when demons are deceiving. Doesn't mean I don't see them as intelligent and sapient creatures because clearly are.
3:20 Not wanting to die is not a feature lost to animals
That was a great analyzation. The quote from Gandalf about morality of life and death, as well as a wider knowledge of Tolkien fantasy is a great stage setter for a philosophical and metaphysical argument about the value of morals versus existentialism. Great video and editing. I hope your channel skyrockets in views and subscribers because you deserve it. Keep up the good work!
Also, I am only using the info in the Anime. Once season 1 ends I will pick up a manga and see if that changes some of my opinions.
I can't wait to see what you have to say about the story after season 1 of the anime!
It should change - at the lastest when you come around the Demon Tod. That should chang your opinion. Also you talk, but don't understand the main difference. Humans / Elves / Dwarfs all have something in common it is altruism. Demons don't care. They would not left alone 10000 years later have erect one orphanage, built an elder care home or be any more engaged with their own kind then it is necessary to achieving their own measuring up against all others. Also you are mixing monsters with demons. Einsam are monsters not demons. Why demons look different with some have human appearance and some not doesn't matter. Humanization is futile.
Also your Gollum straw man is a straw man that you need to be called out for. Gandalf will not make a discussion with you about Balrogs and that Balrog lives matter! So stop BSing yourself and your audience. Gandalf is altruistic going up against what he perceives as evil by nature, not by circumstances like with Gollum, a former Halfling. I'm not saying asking the question is wrong. But coming to your conclusion having false premisses it is in my book. In the end in Frierens world it is not a moral question, that you make it out to be, but an existential. And for that there is only the highland gambit outcome.
Be emphatic with the other humans and for every demon you purge you are saving countless humans!
Bit late to the party here, but demons in Frieren are more like an AI animal hybrid from my understanding. Essentially give a crocodile the capabilities of ChatGPT and you have a demon. Sure it is intelligent and can express emotions, but it is incapable of actually feeling or empathizing.
The only real emotion they can feel is pride and even then it's not the same pride we feel, it's more akin to being the alpha of a pack. They take "pride" in their mana and magical talent because it places them higher in their animal hierarchy; they are closer to being the alpha if they have the power to do so.
As for why they can cry and express emotions, it is a similar tactic to what Frieren does when she controls the flow of her mana. It's a diversionary tactic to raise their chances of survival.
Aura cries because she is either trying to convince Frieren to spare her or her pride is hurt for having her own power used against her, like when a wolf whimpers after getting hurt in a fight.
You, sayng we should feel sorry for seeing demons being dispatched such a cold way is the point made, Frieren knows they are cruel and deceivers, and human will always fall for a baby crying for their mother, the tears of an opponent soon to die, and humans WOULD break or lower their defense and that the moment where demons would strike. So no. No pity, cold blood erasing of those puppets empty of feelings.
It's hard to get angry at the demons, since they aren't malicious, they are just amoral, they have no sense of morality. They completely fail to understand humans and just care about self preservation. It's like getting angry at a lightning strike which kills someone.
exactly. And like a lightning, if you don't put don't metal rods to kill them down in a secure way, they WILL cause hazard
I don't understand how wiping out an entire city just because is a form of self preservation
@@bignoob2726 If I may, I would add that self preservation isn't mutually exclusive from the desire to live comfortably. Us humans have a sense of self preservation, and yet we also like to live comfortably (eat good, wear nice clothes, etc.). This doesn't seem very different to the demons In the anime. In the show, humans are food for demons, much like how cattle and livestock are food for humans IRL. We also wiped out entire forests so we could have more resources, buildings and infrastructure. Kind of the same thing here.
In the end, It's all subjective and it depends on which side you're on. I'm a human, so in any media where its humans vs some other species, of course I'd want to side with humans.
@@platedplatypus9932 the funny thing is, demons don't need to eat humans for survival. They can eat other foods as well, eating humans is more of a satisfaction factor for them. They don't have to kill humans, they actively choose to. If you offer them two choices, kill a cow, cook and eat what remains of it.. or kill a human, they will choose to kill the human 100% of the time.
@@bignoob2726do you eat meat?
It's always easier to say demons should be killed when viewing the story from a 3rd person view. (And I believe some people just want to say "hah I know more about this than you get owned!!")
What I loved about later plots in the original manga, is how the sotry progressively shown us more about the demons, not just the "evilness" of the specie as a whole, but how their individual motivation, and the difference in reaction between human and demon on the same situation.
As if showing fear in the face of death, which every sentient being does, is an endearing trait xD
My heart strings were initially tugged by Aura, but they're supposed to be because demons very effectively prey on empathy. Frieren is an interesting anime to me in the way it asks the audience to look past words and see actions, specifically the impact on the background characters most narratives ignore. The treatment of demons is a direct response to the greater fantasy and romance genre's attempts to humanize monsters. The narrative points out the suffering that's ignored in the place of blanket forgiveness. The narrative states this is a very natural human thing to do, and shows how doing so minimizes the suffering of secondary and tertiary characters who vocalize their pain less eloquently. Using the right words (the demon saying, "Mom.") makes the aggressor more palatable, more like us, and therefore more worthy of protection than their victim. Worthy of protection from their victim in fact. The expressed vulnerability doesn't match with what we saw happen. We can't comprehend why someone who looks so much like us would do this, so we create excuses. The defense of every domestic abuser everywhere. "I just didn't understand what this meant. I'm so sorry I hurt you. It was a mistake. I'll do better next time." Then the abuser behaves the same way, the cycle continues, and the people in the community defend their actions at the expense of the victim. The narrative carefully depicts how language, appearance, word choice, and perceived familiarity ensures some characters matter more than others. We see multiple human characters be taken in by this predictable pattern.
A great example here is Aura. You describe and then dismiss the soldiers whose souls she enslaves as minions. You honed in on the scenes where she's crying and afraid, not the scenes where she gleefully subjugates others. Aura is cute and attractive. Our instinct is to humanize Aura at the expense of her victims. Frieren doesn't.
Sousou no Frieren specifically juxtaposes a cute demon girl against the faceless, empty armors behind her and tells us which side Frieren is on. Frieren mentions she recognizes some of the armors in the crowd of so-called minions, meaning some in that army had been enslaved for at least fifty years. Aura is shown to take enjoyment from her victories. She takes satisfaction and pleasure in the torture of the subjugated person. None of the people she uses are there willingly. The soldiers aren't people to Aura, but even if the body decayed to dust, the soul remains and the soul suffers. What Frieren tells Aura to do in the end is in fact lesser than the pain Aura inflicted on the human knights whose souls she enslaved. Yet some in the audience become angry with Frieren for not demonstrating the appropriate emotion/contrition for her actions or providing Aura with a death that meets heroic standards. We feel bad for Aura who does show these emotions. Despite the pattern repeating itself, we sympathize with Aura for showing vulnerability because our expectations for her are different as a villain. We see her being recognizably like us by reacting the way we'd expect a "good" person to respond, and in our sympathy/empathy we dismiss the suffering Aura's caused. Which is, honestly, very interesting.
Frieren's expression watching the demon girl is more of a depressing mood. Frieren knows it was going to be bad.
I agree with you and I agree with many of your points and so are the same I have but If I'm honest I didn't feel anything when frieren killed that lil demon or Aura.
You know, a simple thing I noticed that makes frieren different from demons - I have yet to see any demons help somebody even when they have nothing to gain from it. That's just what she does most of the time( at least for a 1000+years.) Another thing I have yet to see is any demons struggle with mimics, even with the 99% certainty😂
I interpreted frirens smile as pride or satisfaction in knowing her friends can handle the threats in front of them and they don't need her to hold thier hands even if they don't quite believe in themselves.
This. It wasn't bloodthirst. She didn't want to fight Aura and expressed a desire to get the necessary chore over with. And further on that topic, she actually expressed pity for Aura when Aura decided to use the scales, despite having been her version of raging mad after the Himmel conversation. Frieren's smile was for her kids. And she was empathetic despite her emotions rarely being on display.
It’s funny that psychopaths have the same range of emotions that demons so we can perfectly know how it is to have demons in our society.
By the way, dehumanization can only happen if they are human, you are anthropomorphize the demons. Maybe after 1000 years, you can respect Frerein's judgement as she is right time after time. Maybe that is the message of the author? Those who do not respect experience and age are doomed.