"I know that demons do not raise their children. You're born in isolation, and you raise yourself. So why do you call us mother?" "....Because it stops you from killing us."
I was reading a vampire webcomic, and at one point one of the vampires said to a vampire hunter “We’re not monsters, we’re just fulfilling our part of the food chain!” Which is true, but I was disappointed that they tried to present it like that made humans the bad guys. Because if vampires are the humans predator species, than humans are justified in fighting back against them. Many prey species in nature are ruthless at defending themselves and their kin
To which the proper response is “so was the sapertooth cat and California grizzly. You don’t see any of those around because humans really don’t like it when things try to eat us.”
@@mojus2890 you would but enough people wont. we have countles girls, who whooo over vampire fiction and see themselves on the recieving end of the bite. some people like dangerous animals like tigers as pets. so claiming that they can be reasoned with somehow can help sometimes.
why be disappointed? one of the best ways to write a villain is to make them believe theyre doing nothing wrong while also giving them a twisted worldview. it helps us to learn what evil looks like
The reason I love demons in Frieren is because the author explicitly made Demons as close to human as possible. I think that the minute differences made between humans and demons help speak to what it means to be human and why I think the overall thesis of Frieren is about learning to be human. The contrasts the author puts against humans is so loud when you think about how close they are to actually being human. Frieren isn't about the long lives or mortality that makes someone human. Its about connection and someone who lives on the border of human and demon.
WUT? Demons in Frieren if you look carefully arent "made" to be as close to human as possible. The old demons, from prievious generation most seem to be monstrous like Qual. They were ugly and inhuman and were eventually phased outta existence. From what I can tell it's only the last generation of demons that resembles humans and are very cute and sexy basically as means to gain upper hand. All the huge ugly monsters like Qual are gone. They were ineffective. So demons evolved to be cute instead. They werent always like that.
IDK the demons seemed irredeemable to me. As explained in the show, demons are humanoid monsters who can speak. And all monsters are biologically bound to universal psychopathy. Think of Ted Bundy, but as a whole branch of the animal kingdom. That's pretty far away from the baseline from your average human.
I dislike them for the exact same reason. They are treated as some sort of human mimicking monsters but... so far they didn't show them to be monsters. They speak and act as humans even when they are alone or when that would actually cause problems to them (Like Aura questioning why Frieren didn't just destroy her army like she had done before) so it doesn't really feel like they are faking their humanity.
I agree. I feel that Frieren as a whole is about what it means to be human and how that has more to do with the connections we make and the journeys that we take rather than just the amount of things we do or the goals we accomplish. It very much feels like a meditation on the purpose of existing as a human rather than a simple humans = good, demons = bad sort of story.
@@elissaforteThat's the beauty of it. From a general glace, the demons appear to be human, but the author has explicitly put forth that they are unredeemable and can not coexist. So now, we have to put a close lens on demons and look at the tiny differences because, to the author, those are the differences between human and beast. If you aren't convinced that demons are meant to be unredeemable by the show,I would mainly suggest reading further into the manga. That's probably the more compelling argument. Outside of that, Frieren's initial concept was a gag manga about an elf that hated demons. Since it was a core idea in Frieren's conception, you can bet the author put a lot of thought into demons being the way they are. With Frieren being our lens into this world, we are presented Demons being unforgivable beasts. There is pushback to this idea in the story but it is always swiftly countered. This is intentional. We are to think of demons as anything but human, despite our instincts telling us that they are.
if that Arc will be a 2,5 hour movie with title "Frieren : The Mage of Flower againt Everlasting Gold" i'll be in the theatre 6 hour before it premiere
That's the fiction. If you research the demons detailed in The Bible, you'll see that demons chose to fall, and knew full well that they'd be damned for eternity and suffer for eternity, and they still chose to fall.
@@hariman7727 literally no one is talking about abrahamic demons. also, "that's the fiction" seems to suggest that the stories detailed in the bible are non-fiction under this context.
@@hariman7727 The one third went along with Lucifers lies, after all he was a known figure in heaven at the time. I bet some only realized what happened when Micheal responded, falling into the new created universe. Then, over the millennia they would of become increasingly insane/corrupted from their original selves.
Here's a pretty big wrench to throw into this theory. The thing is, demons in Frieren don't need to eat humans, they just want to. More so, this desire to kill overpowers logical reasoning to the point of running contrary to self preservation. That is why they are considered monsters. Monsters as a whole aren't natural creatures, that's why they crumble into dust upon death. In most medieval manga monsters as a trope or not a part of nature but instead a result of magic and thus aren't truly alive, providing protagonists easy targets to kill. Frieren does make it more complicated by making them intelligent with ability to reason, but at the same time it doesn't step away from them being monsters. Demons just aren't actual people, you can think of them like a artificial intelligence with purpose of killing humans. Their ancestor species where just imitating sounds to lure people, now gaining logic and intelligence after evolving, yet the purpose stays the same. Although, in later chapters we can see that this process is still going, and some demons begin to understand humanity better. Which only makes them more dangerous.
@@impulseelectrobrine1259 but for demons their sentience is just another tool to kill humans and satisify their desire to kill in more effective ways. i think demons soley exist as a means to show that misplaced empathy is dangerous
Look there’s like 3 ways that I think I commonly see in fiction 1. Evil, they’re the enemies of the main characters usually sadistic and mentally fucked so viewers would never agree with them 2. They’re hot as fuck 3. The word “demon” is used for what is essentially another race of people in a multi-race fantasy world
I think they're doing 3 with Tsukimichi. There is a race of demons, but they actually seem to be a group of other races that previously inhabited the world and were displaced when the goodness arrived with her humans. So the war they wage against humans is mostly just them taking back their lands. I would need to read the novels to fully understand that, but I really don't want to, so the spoilers I got will have to suffice for now.
It's because Japan does not have christian heritage. From their perspective a demon is not the personification of evil, but a humanoid with non-human features such as wings, tails or horns. Effectively a demi-human.
There's a manga arc which follows very briefly after the end of the anime material which involves the Demon Macht. It's really an opportunity for Kanehito Yamada to go further in depth with the nature of demons, as the arc is primarily about Macht spending years sincerely attempting to understand humanity through pointed conversations and observation while walking among them pretending to have been made harmless by magic. It really conveys how alien the mindset the demon's is to a human - and vice versa - while displaying the interiority of a demon who isn't actively seeking power or conquest.
Yes its interesting because they are a demons and human laws and emotions or what we call the norm does not apply to them. Its one of my favourite arc and it also shows that demons like Macht who pursue understanding with humans are the most dangerous.
@@Re_V😅 they're really just pulling All this out. Hope the guy didn't see this. Thankfully I saw them talking about and stopped before I read on. I know I only and I wish to stay that way
I didn't expect this series to get better and expand to comparing other shows artfully, but again you continue to impress with having more meaningful things to share about the show we all enjoyed.
6:15 Pey: *says demons are only acting on self preservation* Also Pay: *shows a scene where a demon attacks someone for no other reason than because they can and gets themself killed for having done so* From an evolutionary behavior standpoint, demons living in caves benefited from attacking humans, but the moment they emerged humans were no longer reliable prey, there were infinitely better options. Especially now that they looked humanoid, they could use their body shape as a form of mimicry to hunt species who had become friends with humans, or simply pretend to be human and blend in, but instead they attack the species they would have gained most from becoming symbiotic with, which they wouldn't even have to try very hard to do. Neither the show or manga offer a reason demons need to eat specifically humans aside from nutrients and availability during early evolution, adventurers wandering into dark caves, so even prior to attaining sapience they should have already switched food sources, unless there's some factor we've missed.
You'd have to also factor in fantastical elements with a huge leap of imagination to make sense of the evolution of demons in the world of Frieren. The demons evolved to feed on humans because humans are the best sources of mana. Unlike humans, mana is the demon's literal life force that needs replenishment from an outside source. They're literally made of mana that needs constant input of external mana sources to maintain their form. How do we know this? Unlike humans, when demons die they completely disintegrate into thin air. While that is as good as a headcannon, it's still logically sound in a world where mana is an essential element of existence.
I love your comment, but I mostly wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you using SAPIENCE correctly instead of throwing the overused (and 99.99% of the time, wrongly) word "sentience" when actually speaking of "sapience" lmao. Ik my reply might seem random, but I'm so tired of seeing people on Internet (even authors, gosh...) use "sentience" instead of "sapience" (obviously when indeed speaking of "sapience"). Heck, even in my own WIP universe, I use the word a lot and my advisors/friends early on would ask me if I meant "sentience" 🗿🗿
I mean, one problem with that is no species really is just friends with humans (unless you mean other humanoids but, same issue). Wild animals almost invariably fear humans when humans move into the area with very few exceptions - and honeyguides aren’t good eating, really - and domestic animals are often just as heinous to try to attack as a human is because of how human pack-bonding works. I’ll admit I haven’t watched the series, but it could be a specialization thing. Targeting humans at this point might be more instinctual than strictly necessary, and I have my doubts they’d be able to ally with humans after the long history of eating them - even if only in caves beforehand. It’d be like a fox trying to befriend chickens and mice, they’re simply not built to innately recognize them as more than prey. Hell, even humans have some issues with this kind of thing, though mostly culturally learned rather than properly instinctual, and usually relegated to speech rather than to action - I think we’ve all at least heard of someone joking about eating chicken when someone mentions having a pet chicken after all, haven’t we?
I dont think the demon arc is really about the question of "what is evil". In the beginning we're led on to believe that the demons are essentially misunderstood humans with horns, but quickly this is shown to be nothing but an illusion. The demons really are "evil", or rather the embodiment of everything humans consider to be evil, as you said, they dont necessarily act straightforwardly out of malice. But i think this is beside the point. The point, I think, that Frieren is trying to illustrate is that in life sometimes there are forces that simply wish for your destruction, they may have more nuanced motivations then simply being evil, like "self preservation" or "survival" but at the end of the day they want to harm you. Frieren also attempts to show the audience that sometimes the best aspects of our nature, our kindness our generosity, when combined with naivete, act as footholds for those forces to enter our lives, to lead lead us to ruin. And so the best thing to do is to remain vigilant and ready to fight, to not be taken in by our own wishful thinking, to see the threats around us for what they are, regardless of whether or not they are truely "evil". This question of "are the demons evil, or a force of nature" is more a by product of Frieren's attempt to subvert the trope of the "misunderstood bad guys" by reminding the audience that, just because the demons are "wild beasts" acting out their programming, doesnt change the fact that youre survival depends on see thru their tricks, and defeating them.
Something to say as I am half way through the video and you mentioned this twice. Demons DO NOT need to eat humans to live. This is specifically stated. And yet they do. I feel like this is heavily important in a discussion on weather these demons are evil and what evil is.
We don't need to eat meat to live. Lions don't need to eat humans to live yet I would not get very close to one. The point is in Frieren demons are more like animals/monsters. Humans happen to be their preferred morsel.
It's more like they were just monsters who evolved specifically to be able to hunt humans and humanoid creatures, hence their ability to study, copy and use magic to appear more similar to elves, make use of a longer lifespan to trick dwarves and lie about emotion in order to get closer to humans.
Yeah I think Pey is off the mark with this one. He seemed so afraid that “Demon” was some sort of racist dog whistle that he did everything he could to distance it from that when he found he was actually compelled by the story. It’s not even to say that Demons would or wouldn’t be evil because they needed to eat humans to live (as if something can’t be evil because it acts out of necessity, “necessary evil” being a well accepted term). The nature of something can just be evil. I’ve seen plenty of evidence that human nature itself can be rooted in evil. There are people whose nature breeds malice and no one had to teach that to them. It seems like no one had to teach Demons malice either. Maybe they just never had the capacity to deny that nature and evolve to be something better? Sometimes the villain can just be a villain and doesn’t have to be a commentary on social justice. I guess that would still make the story one of “self vs nature”
I feel like demons are more like monsters that evolved in order to specifically hunt humanoids. That's why they're able to copy magic to appear similar to elves, that's why they have long lifespans that they use to hone a single craft (usually involving killing) to relate to dwarves and that's why they pretend to have emotions to prey on humans more easily.
This is very interesting to me, because I had the complete opposite reaction of that the demons were finally just evil, they weren’t humans that just had horns and acted bad with strong powers or something. They were actually different and evil. There is no peace treaty to bargain with. I feel like in other media, demons are just what I explained earlier. Different humans. Bad people that just need to be understood to be able to have peace with. I’m not saying I hate that, I’m just tired of seeing it so much and Frieren demons were such a breath of fresh air for me.
They aren't evil, though. They are wild beasts. Polar bears will kill and eat any human they can get their hands on. They can't be trained or made safe to be around, but they aren't evil. Frieren's demons are the same.
Evolved demons no less. To be evil, but to primarily use manipulation instead of pure power, is more aligned with the past depictions of demons or what we see in the Bible. It really is fresh to just see evil being evil, not misunderstood or something. Just wholly evil by nature, and in a way that can't be broken
Yea demons in frieren are naturally evil but still sentient and real. And I love that. It felt so fresh and "new" You could almost compare them to psychopaths (as in you cant really understand them and Just see them as evil)
@@Aizelav I think you both missed the point. Frieren calls it out very specificly. They are wild beasts. They are dangerous and violent, but they aren't evil any more than a polar bear is.
As a Japanese person I wanted to give insight to Mushoku Tensei title. The actual full title in Japanese is ” Mushoku Tensei: I will seriously try in another world”. I feel like this title is important because it essentially says the entire theme of the story in the title. “TRY” is the big factor that this story always emphasizes. I believe Mushoku is interested in asking the question "Do you or will you regret it? Than try your best to do something about it." Rudeus regrets not taking action in his previous life but never regrets being a horn dog. That is why Rudeus in this life still has the same tendency but tries his absolute hardest to learn magic. But I also don't think MT is saying "Just trying will get you results" as there is many time characters who tries their absolute hardest fails. But what that action give is closure. You may have not gotten the result you wanted but at least you tried... I believe that is what MT is trying to convey.
I agree. A lot of people say MT is about a second chance. A second chance... at what? Well, it's about a second chance at simply living. Part of living is making mistakes - thousands of them. Part of it is also about being inconsistent, hypocritical, being an asshole - all the ugly things we have all done and experienced and try to push to the back of our minds. MT isn't a diluted story that tells us of a scumbag becoming a paragon. It's a story of a scumbag given another chance to LIVE, make mistakes, make himself and others happy, love, be hurt, hurt others - all of that and more.
@@akaneriyun4774 Exactly that, and that's why I love it. Rudy does get punished for being a horndog, but it shows just how human he is that he only really learns on a case by case basis. He pervs on Lilia and Roxy until Lilia tells him to stop. He accidentally undresses Sylphy thinking that she was a boy, and doesn't perv on her afterwards to anywhere near the same extent he did Lilia and Roxy. He pervs on Eris until she beats the crap out of him, and is then on his best behaviour across the entire Demon Continent. Rudy reprimands Aisha when she offers a "reward" to him, saying kids shouldn't say things like that (hypocritical, sure, but also good and responsible). And then he and Eris sleep together, after which her letter utterly destroys him to the point that when he meets Sara, he just *_can't_* perv on her. He's just too damn depressed to even try. When he and Sylphy get married, it isn't the aphrodisiac or even the _act_ that cures him, it's the knowledge that someone loves him for who he is, ugly faults and terrible mistakes all. And while he broke his promise, it was a promise that Sylphiette never planned on holding against him, so long as he didn't go to a _brothel._ In other words, expanding the family's all good, just not playing around. And that is all just a single facet of the character that is Rudy. There's his relationships with his parents, both Japanese and Greyrat. There's how he interacts with the world, and is naive to common sense even after almost two decades of life, simply because he's never run into such a "common sense" situation before. Polygamy is met with shrugs by most of the world, with only those of the Milis faith considering it to be horrible. There's just so much to love in the world MT builds that disliking it because you can't compartmentalize its story as "it's a redemption" just feels... I dunno. In bad faith, or immature.
This is a better read of the show than I think most of its fans give. I think this also shows a "problem" the video maker has in engaging with media. A point was made in the video is that media should treat evil with seriousness proportionate to the evil. If you do not hold that opinion, then your experience with media is going to be different. Especially if you add in the extra effort of listening for dog whistles. I do neither of those things most of the time, but the fans of MS may have that issue because some of them cannot grapple with Rudy being a pedo (mostly in the beginning, i hear he grows out of it which also seems to be the point.) My issue is that despite solid writing And characterization it falls into the trap of making rudy inconsistent.
@@SuperiorPosterior I'm currently watching MT and I think it's fair to say that Rudy does show character growth throughout the story. He's far from perfect as a person, but he recognizes the need to change and grow. He knows that he was responsible for most of his own suffering in his prior life and he learns from that.
Frieren herself has similar traits to the demons. She toys with them, deceives them... But it looks like these traits were taught to her by Flamme. And as she could be full of hatred to them she is pretty calm when dealing with them. She does not look like she is enjoying it though, it looks like work to her, something that needs to be done. She does get the satisfaction of work well done at the end though..
This is exactly what a demon later told Frieren. Telling if her could kill another human-looking creature in cold blood then maybe she isn't much different than them.
It is taught to her. Base on Flamme's explanation. Elves aren't the type to run away from conflict, even if it's a tactical retreat.They face their problems,head on, even if it means their deaths. And demons took advantage of this. On top of the Demon attacks- as they see them as their biggest threat, AND Elves rarely reproducing,(because they saw it as pointless due to their long lifespan) the elf race is now nearly extinct. Even NOW they don't seem to prioritize repopulation. Base on the three elves we have met so far.
It goes beyond her reaction to demons, though. Anytime humans want to do something dumb, she pretty much lets them. She might briefly say, "This is dumb", but if they're like "We want to try this", she steps aside and lets it play out. Like a demon, she doesn't seem to hold much value to their lives. This is probably in part because humans aren't friends. They're strangers, except those few acquaintances she took a brief 10 year journey with.
I actually had the opposite thought. The "the demon is actually good/misunderstood/whatever" trope has become so common and overused these days that seeing show treat demons as genuinely unreedemably evil felt refreshing and novel. We are so obsessed with subverting expectations that we can often lose why a original exists in the first place. Me realizing that "the original form of a trope is OK actually" is a lesson I've been learning for a while now and this is a great example of it. There's also a big trend of writers trying to one up themselves in how "dark and gritty and subversive" they can make their work, which is something else I've started to not take immediately anymore, which is also around the time Frieren and dungeon meshi came out, which I would normally not care for due to being fed up with the state of fantasy, but I gave them chance because they picked my interest and I that was a great idea cause they both "go back to the basics" while simultaneously exploring an aspect of the world that is seen as secondary. They didn't "subvert expectations" because the demon king is the good guy or whatever they took your typical normal fantasy world and looked at it from a different lenz. And that has felt way more genuine to me than trying to be "subversive". Since you also mentioned mushoku at the end I want to quickly talk about that too because the reason I enjoy it is actually kinda similar but from the other end. Basically if you didn't know, if we go by light novel releases, mushoku is the first of the "modern isekai" style that's become too familiar now. But it got made into an anime way way later. The result of this makes it a very intriguing watch to me because throughout the story we essentially witness the birth of the modern isekai tropes, but instead of just being tropes that you put in because they are the trope and bend the story around their inclusion like later isekai, in mushoku the story itself naturally leads to scenarios put the characters in the situations that eventually became the isekai tropes. This additional layer of knowing that they aren't because they're the tropes but literally the origin point of them makes it really fascinating to me.
Yeah, I'm with you. When the Demons first tried to play nice I was expecting a plot to be revealed where "Maybe Frieren was the badguy all along! Demons were only mean because early Elves were oppressors!"
Tbf, it's still subversion. The show implies demons evolved from mimics, aka they pretend to be something/someone they're not to lure in prey. They don't kill humans out of any desire for good or evil, but because it's just in their nature to do so.
I also really like what Frieren does because it manages to, at least for me, get me to doubt the heros. For a second early on, I was debating whether or not mayyyyybe the demons werent entirely evil, but then the penny kinda dropped after they attack Frieren in the jail cell that na, they're just evil, which i like. its different
In case you forgot, the demon king order that the elves be exterminated. It's nice to think that the demons might not be evil, but it's pretty clear that they are if you take in all of the information the show is giving us.
Your analysis of the demons is somewhat off. While i agree that it's mostly "person vs nature", there is still a way to judge the demons individually by their intentions. If i included the demons from the manga it would take too long, also spoilers, so i will only talk about the 6 demons that we see in the anime: 1. Qual - Qual is a monster. He looks like one, he act like one, he dies like one, his appearance makes this easy to understand so he's not given much of a thought afterwards. There's no simps on twitter posting pictures of Qual saying they can fix him. What's important is that other than appearance, all other demons are the same kind of being as him, in fact their appearance is part of deception, they look like humans to invoke empathy from humans. That is the only reason for their humanoid appearance. There's no question about Quals morality either. He developed what is essentially avada kadavra. Magic for the purpose of killing. He did this because he likes killing. In fact, i would argue you can judge a demons morality by the magic that they use. 2. Child demon - first off, what exactly makes a demon a child? Linie looks like an early teenager at best, but is at least 40, probably much more. The fact that demons have no concept of father or mother implies that they don't actually reproduce sexually. This might be my headcannon, but it seems what separates animals from monsters is that monsters aren't born from a mother but instead spawn by some law of magic. And demons are just monsters that look human and can talk. So it's possible that the child demons is a recent spawn, and so very lacking in experience, in fact we don't even see her use any magic, meaning she probably hasn't existed long enough to develop any. She's also the only demon I can definitively say is not evil, because her actions, while following a very flawed logic and lack of the understanding of humans, were done in self preservation. But it does speak volumes that the one demon that is not explicitly evil still ends up being the cause of death and grief to everyone around them. 3. Aura the Guilliotine - now we get to the good part. Aura is hands down the reason this debate happened in the first place, people arguing that Frieren should have spared her, because she basically had made her a slave and so Aura was now harmless. So let me say this - Aura is 100% unquestionably, undeniably EVIL. She is someone who has a lot of mana compared to most demons, and that basically makes her nobility among them. She is actively proud of this, in fact, it makes up her entire personality. You can see this by the fact that her magic is "let's see who has the bigger dick, if it's me, you become my slave and im 100% sure this will never backfire because i would have never created such magic otherwise." Her army is made up of men she subjugated with her magic and then decapitated so that they could never resist. She didn't do this because she starving, she did it because she enjoys it. And her being forced to cut off her own head after being humbled is the most fitting end for her. 4. Lugner, Linie and Draht - from what little we know about demon culture, demons with less mana have to obey demons with more mana, so these 3 are auras emissaries. This makes judging them somewhat harder because their actions don't seem to come from malice. However, they clearly take pleasure in killing, especially Draht, and the only reason Lugner seems to have an issue with it is because it jeopardizes their long term deception. All in all, they don't seem to be reluctant participants who are forced to follow orders. They are as committed to destroying the city and eating its people as Aura is. In the end i would judge them as evil because they do seem to kill people for pleasure, not just food.
Also, why would anyone want a character who is supposed to remain sympathetic to keep a slave? It's one thing to play the Uno Reverse Card on the evil artifact in the moment to kill the badguy, but continuing to use the evil artifact after that is not good person behavior.
You are very wrong on Qual dude. He is not just "some monster", he was one of the most respected Demons in existence and was basically a "Hero" for Demonkind for creating a spell that is capable for the mass murder of humans (their mortal enemies that killed lots of Demons), also Macht was saddened that he died, because Qual was his mentor and teacher. That is the genius of Frieren, even characters like Qual that fist seem forgettable monster of the week characters, are actually quite deep and nuanced characters.
@zigazdovc6175 i'm not saying he wasn't respected by other demons, i'm saying that he gets no simpatjy from the audience and that because of his appearance, no one debated if he is evil or not.
What the demons are and how they think is a major subject in the manga in later chapters. In effect demons are a species that cannot feel any sort of empathy to anyone or anything. Not even others of their kind. The best comparison that can be made is that they are intelligent sharks (the series actually makes this comparison). sm
@@PettyCrow-n9cYou haven't read the manga. Your comment is literally wrong. That literal distinction is depicted in the manga. Another thing is if you want to nitpick it the in-manga comparison etc etc. But do you really want to argue against the characters in the manga against the author's choices? Isn't it silly?
7:47 The judgement of Humbert is only part of what is going on in Lolita. The other part of it is Nabokov playing with the reader's habit of sympathizing with protagonists and trusting narrators. We *know* what Humbert is, but as we read his self-justification and self-deception, we tend to *forget*--and then when Humbert's mask slips again, we are disgusted not only with him but with *ourselves*.
Something I noticed when watching Frieren is how the way they use language is strikingly similar to how certain things use it in real life. I say "things" because they aren't people, but rather "AI", or more accurately Language Models. Modern text-based generative AIs like Chat-GPT often get criticized for giving false information, "hallucinating", or "lying", but the truth is that they don't actually understand what they're saying any more than the demons in Frieren do. They simply say the words that they believe they're expected to say, because that's the behavior that was rewarded during training. It's a different sort of self-preservation, but could still in a sense be boiled to a similar idea.
It's hard to see the demons as acting strictly to preserve or reproduce when we have characters like Lugner and Aura that clearly derive some satisfaction from inflicting pain. Lugner wanted to get revenge for a surprise attack. Nature is never so reactive and malicious.
@@animeproblem1070 Octopus, too, have been known to hold grudges against certain keepers at aquariums and spray them or act up around them specifically.
Mate humans are animals and other animals hurt stuff for fun too like dolphins and other stuff not sure how you didn’t know this common sense but whatever
I think you make a good argument, but I also think there are some scenes that undercut what you're saying. If you look at Lugner versus Fern, you see that while the outcomes of the two ambushes are similar, Fern was trying to kill Lugner and missed while Lugner had the same opportunity and, if I'm remembering the scene correctly, intentionally went for the option that caused Fern more pain. That, I would argue, is not the behavior of a predator trying to take out a threat. That is the behavior of someone who is being cruel because he wants to. That is what I think most people would argue is an evil act. It's not the only one, either. In some its more subtle, but still there. This one just happens to be the most blatant example that I remember. I'll agree that the demons are excellently done in Frieren, but I don't think they represent nature in the same way you are talking about. Then again, I do believe that there is such a thing as an objective evil and an objective good, and from that viewpoint you can say that a good person opposing great evil is a person versus nature story. The nature in question just happens to be human nature. Just my two cents while I should really be asleep. 😛
Do demons really have to be benign and NOT evil to represent nature? It could just be in their nature to be sadistic. Evil also lies in nature, you know.
I disagree. For one, humankind always has some people who choose the path of more pain but it would be stupid to call all of humankind evil when it’s only a minority. Secondly, animals and plants, despite being seen as natural and neutral, have very sadistic ways of surviving. A venus fly trap for example does not need to evolve methods of melt the body of an insect to feed off the liquid version of its body but it does. A orca does not need to slap a manta ray ten feet into the air to kill it but it tenderizes the meat. Despite the instincts driving most animals, most animals still know what “fun” is and how to partake in it and every action we mostly judge them on is based on anthropomorphism on their behavior since we use relative judgement to judge what we consider “right” or “wrong” when it’s all neutral. Is a Kangaroo evil for leaving their child to die? For us, yes, because humans view life as generally precious. For the Kangaroo, it means living another year and just making another baby to replace them. Is an any colony evil for enslaving other ants they’ve raided? There’s a lot of scenarios when put into human morally seemed messed up but is the natural order for these animals.
Cats, that's the only thing you really gotta say to dispute this, cats toy with their prey, pretty consistently. Stimulation is also a need for species with brains
@@tomykong2915 If I recall correctly, the reason cats, at least housecats "play" with their prey has more to do with disabling it and preventing it from harming the cat than anything like malice or a need to play. Granted, intelligent animals often do engage in play, but that's not what's happening with cats whenever they bat around a mouse from what I understand.
@@seraphywang4638 Actually, Venus fly traps and other carnivorous plants pretty much had to do just that in order to survive in their native environments. The insects provide nutrients that the plants need. They're plants, so they don't produce the energy needed to use quicker forms of killing the insects. Basically, trapping and digesting the insect while it's alive really is the only way for carnivorous plants to do that because they're reliant on what the structures and mechanisms that evolved in plants, and that doesn't include fast acting muscles. As for orcas, it still kills the manta ray quickly, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were other reasons for them to do it that way, like avoiding injury like you see with cats. Ants are not that intelligent, and as far as I'm aware there's really only one species of ant that would do something like this, and it only works because the colonies outside of South America, which is where those ants come from, haven't really diverged from each other enough for them to see those colonies as different colonies. If I remember right, that same species of ants does fight itself in its native habitat because the colonies are different enough for them to see each other as threats. But as for as ants in general go? What we're seeing with them is a lot like what we see in video games or with AI. There's a set of relatively simple behaviors and instincts (or routines and conditions in the case of the computer stuff) that results in emergent behaviors that appear to be intelligent at first glance. It's not, but to most people it appears that way. I can't really argue with you about applying human values and ethics to the actions of other animals, but then again, I'm not trying to. I am arguing that the demons are not as gray or neutral as Pey says they are. While the mindset of demons does have some very alien elements to it, I'd argue that they are still very much human in some significant ways, and not just because of their appearance. One of the comments mentions that evil occurs in nature, and I think the issue with that is that, by and large, most animal's brains do not work like ours. For demons, it's clear that they don't either, not exactly, but I'll get back to that in a moment. The question I have is what makes someone sadistic? You have to derive pleasure from the pain and humiliation that you cause. It's right there in the definition. So now we have to ask what is the intent? Why does an animal do something? As far as I'm aware, humans are really the only things that have the capacity to be sadistic, to know that we are causing pain and take pleasure from that. Even our closest cousins, the other great apes, don't show behaviors like that, again as far as I'm aware. So what does that mean for demons? I've already mentioned Lugner and how he started his fight with Fern, but Lugner's hardly the only demon to show something that I would call sadism. Aura shows a smug satisfaction when she thinks she has Frieren beaten, and instead of trying to kill her quickly, she draws it out. I doubt it would have mattered in the end, but it does show what I would call a desire to relish in her superiority over Frieren. We see something similar with Draht when he tries to take Frieren's head and again with Linie where she draws the fight out with Stark. And I think that it's significant that the four demons with the most screentime so far do show those tendencies towards sadism. Most of Qual's screentime was spent on the fight against Frieren and Fern. There wasn't a lot of time for characterization in that, and to be honest, he really didn't stick in my mind that well. It's the same for the demons we see when Frieren remembers how she met Flamme and became her apprentice. They just weren't around long enough to do more than spout off about how the Demon King has decreed the elves need to be slaughtered (and the biggest question here is why,) and establish that demons tend to be arrogant when they think they have the upper hand. The demon girl in the flashback when Frieren is explaining demon nature to Fern and Stark is really the one demon we see that has a good amount of screentime that we don't see behaving in a way that suggests she enjoys the pain she has caused. To me, it stands out because of that. This and the scene with Lugner and Linie when she asks what a father is do an excellent job of showing that there are things that are completely alien to how demons think. Don't get me wrong. I think the demons in Frieren are interesting and well written. I'm also not so arrogant as to say that I could very well be wrong. I am willing to admit that I don't know everything either. That said, I don't think the demons in Frieren are as gray as everyone wants to believe. And if it turns out that cats and orcas really are sadists, well, it'd hardly be the first time I was wrong about something.
3:58 ok but this is amazing from a psychological perspective - essentially it's how psychopaths learn to mimic empathy, responses are picked based on their perceived benefit
I really like how they run demons in Frieren. So often we see sympathetic demons or demons that can be negotiated with, such as in YuYu Hakusho, Naruto, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, or to some extent Black Butler. This ignores so much of the historical and religious context behind demons, they are unabashedly malevolent. On the other hand, I see them so often as murderous rampaging brutes, such as in Seven Deadly Sins or most Isekai. This again misses so much of the historical and religious context, Satan is noted as being a deceiver and the father of lies as well as the whole kill, steal, and destroy. Frieren gets that, demons are intelligent, scheming, and all too happy to talk about peace while bringing an army to humanity's doorstep.
I really like the presentation of demons in Frieren. Author just went full Goblin Slayer on them. Demons are often portrayed as a misunderstood victims of slandering. But there? They are just ridiculously inteligent *ANIMALS* , who's thirst for human blood gets in the way of self preservation. Thats what makes them *MONSTERS* . There is no difference between that one parrot repeating tortured screams from a movie, to be let out of its cage, and a demon spawn screaming for its "parents" when facing danger. I *LOVE* this ! I once saw someone compare these demons to AI ChatBot's, and it struck me like lightning. I could also mention "Chinese Room" experiment there. They don't know the meaning of the words they say, but they know they will get a positive results for using them. I aspire to be such writer one day ! TL ; DR : - Demons are *cleary* shown to be nothing else than a super inteligent *animals* . - *RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT IS DONE*
Its a breath of fresh air when the demons are treated like demons and not just humans with a funny hat on. Its becoming annoying that every other fantasy anime just slaps some horns on a human and calls it a demon. Let demons be demons!
i actually thought that op from level 2 had an interesting take on "humans with a funny hat" that should have been (and could have been if it was a more serious anime) explored further. the maisma. in this series they constantly emit an aura that humans and other humanoids cannot exist around, and the humans have holy magic which immediately kills demons. essentially demons are antimatter. it would be interesting to see an anime that takes this further. what would a society look like where two races cannot coexist, for the reason that they will literally destroy each other even if they leave each other alone?
I can't wait until they animate the golden land/El dorado arc with Macht... you're gonna love it. Great video as always i love your frieren series and overall your analyzations of animes
Your view on Demons is interesting though I do feel that you are missing a little something in your analysis. Demons do not NEED to feed on humans to sustain themselves, they like to because it demonstrates their superiority. They actively seek it out too. A bear in the woods does not target you, nor does a tiger in the jungle, even a shark in the ocean has no specific desire to kill and eat you just to prove they are the predator and you the prey. There is will in what the demons do. Aura does not need to destroy Graf Granat's town. There is no self preservation benefit (nor harm either from her perspective). She just needs to prove she is superior. Nature acts indiscriminately to eat or in self defense, demons do not. That is just my analysis however. I believe they fit more into the unknown category. A species other humanoids can't get on the same page with. Selfish and mostly solitary but still with a hierarchy and society and morals all their own. They are as much nature as an enemy faction of cannibals that finds leadership in the old axiom that might makes right.
arguably, the demons can represent nature *itself*. you can see the hero party as analogous to the advancement in technology, human knowledge and the collective wisdom of society, like in frieren being a thousand years old, representative of the culmination of knowledge, and the defeat of the demon lord being the ultimate triumph of society against nature.
That's a nice analogy, @somehybrid why don't you back it up with a source? Honestly speaking, fair enough -but, why then are the demons still all around?- I realised as soon as I typed that that if the same were analogous to today, then there'd be no nature around our lives, which obviously isn't true
The way demons from Frieren are absolute one of the most well written demons I ever seen, they aren't human in anyway other than language and aspect, they have absolute their own logic, they aren't evil they are just predators, human vs nature is a perfect way to describe it, a perfect example of that is Kiseiju, if we think about it the parasite from Kiseiju have a similar logic
I see demons in Frieren as a metaphor for psychopaths. Like psychopaths, demons lack of empathy and guilt, and use the language for the purpose of lying and manipulating humans. So to consider if demons are evil, we should ask ourselves if we consider psychopaths as evil.
I shared the same conclusion about the parallels to psychopathy (ASPD). For a long time, I was unsure how to feel about the demons, and felt the same way "early" Frieren did (during her first heroes journey): wary observation. Once we reached the climax of that flashback arc (and later, the climax of the demon war), some things clicked for me: •These demons ARE psychopaths, but psychopaths are not demons, because •IRL people with ASPD have various motives that don't hinge on preying on other people to meet their goals. (Not saying some don't or won't prey on humans as A main directive or stepping stone, just that it's not always the core of their drive for each one.) •Those demons were inherently dangerous BECAUSE of their subsistence of preying on humans/humanoids, and Frieren clearly understands this (which is why she has no qualms about exterminating them all on sight). There is no bargaining, there is no alternative, there is no understanding possible to grow. The demons only see other creatures as food sources, and they are not the type to argue with their food without it resulting in their full belly in the end. •Those demons are in fact, not evil, but very animalistic in their drive for sustenance and self-preservation, to the point that demons with casually sell out their own kin if the pros outweigh enough of the cons. It's not so much a choice as a business transaction. •As a result, this gave me a fresh perspective on both the fantasy and the irl dynamics on how these types operate (simplified as it may be). I still don't know how I feel about them, but at least I have a clearer picture about what to expect.
I would say they are evil in the sense that coexistence is not an option, why they are considered monsters and not a people. It's not shown at least thus far that demons can co exist long enough to build a web of logic that makes up for a lack of empathy, as i assume most high functioning psychopaths acquire. Even animals have a mix of logic and empathy. It's highly unlikely that they could learn the language and not puzzle out meaning from it over thousands of years. They just don't because they dont need to: because their pursuit of unbridled power and crushing everything with it hasn't been shown to fail enough to matter. I liken it to the "the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference" that people will often quote. That's obviously dumb: if you put the two on a straight line, they are clear opposites. What people actually see is an exaggerated U, with love and hate being roughly equidistant or close in terms of passion and reasoning, and indifference being the farthest thing from either. It's fitting that in a polarized world, such a saying has gained traction.
that would be to acknowledge demons as a human being though at Psychopathy is a disorder in demons, the idea that they are nature, an evolved wild animal that only mimics humans to get a meal or such fits better than saying they simply hold no empathy, you dont say lions are psychopaths for eatings a gazelle
i see a demon as an animal in frieren they have hairacy system, they know how to live around human, and they neither bad or good for human. but the way they fix a problem is very different with human basically if human doesnt have "humanity" in them
I disagree with your premise that a story must accord with my morals to be worthwhile or enjoyable. (how many stories are about a _true king reclaiming the throne,_ completely counter to my idea of a just society?) I _do_ think that if a story is going to give me the icks, it needs to earn it somehow. Maybe by leveraging the ick, maybe by telling a story that wouldn't otherwise be possible, or maybe by being just too damn good to dismiss, even if it has something I don't like. Very much like how if a story does something to strain my suspension of disbelief, the story needs to be doing something that makes the stretch worth it (see eg mr btongue on magic and "why put a wizard in it?").
I'm a firm believer in no story (except that specifically for children), has any moral obligation to be "right". If the the storytelling is gripping, what more do I need?
@@jaideepshekhar4621fiction enforced beliefs and inadvertently os a reflection of the values the author holds close to their heart. There's so many microdifferences between American and Japanese media in terms of morality and beliefs. It inevitably leads to a culture clash.
There are levels to it. I hate watching or reading anything that makes emperor's the good, romantic guy. It goes so far against the actually reality and my morals compass that I don't like reading it.
@@upg5147well it depends on how the story itself presents such morals. I can easily watch or read something that has awful shit going on that goes against everything I believe. But if a story tries to justify those things within the narrative, then I no longer want to participate in it.
what would happen if you gave a lion several chances to "redeem" themselves by choosing not to kill and eat prey? they'd probably "refuse" as well. are humans irredeemable as long as they keep killing and eating other animals? even as these animals plead for their lives and suffering with all the communication skills they have?
@@gamongames precisely that, yeah. I was just coming to say that it was less that the demons *chose* not to be redeemed so much as they simply didn't understand what there was to redeem, or even the concept of redemption itself.
@@gamongamesdemon doesn't necessary need to eat human to survive. Human is just part of their natural prey, they can live well off without ever consume human. But eat human is part of their nature
I think as well, that a lot of whether demons could be considered 'Evil' in Frieren comes down to the difference between Amorality and Immorality. I'd argue that the Demons are inherently Amoral - morality has no influence on their actions towards humans, just as a Wolf's actions towards deer is not influenced by morality. For both Demons and Wolves, it is their nature to prey upon them.
I don't usually comment but I didn't think that I'd find someone else thought the same with Mushoku Tensei I was expecting a redemption story, a flawed character learning to better ones self (as the original name sorta implies, "I'll really try in another world") But was left feeling disappointed in the end when that isn't the main focus. I'll still think it's good but I yearn for more of the redemption that was promised (I'll still stick it out) Thank you Pey, for taking at nuanced look at the Demon topic, as divisive as it is. I've watched this video series since the second one and I can't wait for the rest of the video series. I am rooting for you!
While I am not a fan of Tensei either I know some stuff about the original web novel and let me say that Rudeus we have now or form the light novel version is an actual improvement. To tdlr it the web novel rudeus was creeping on his niece and let’s just say that it lead to his brother beating him to death. Light novel rudeus iirc had a different beginning.
@@bleato2 yh but as for the current version and from my talk with fans of the series Rudeus will remain a sleaze just more contained. And he will improve and suffer the consequences of his actions but not in the way you would hope.
I was also pleasantly surprised to find someone who had the same view as I about mushoku tensei. I think many of us had came in with that view due to a certain popular anime TH-camr haha
Redemption generally isn't something that happens overnight or even in a single/couple anime arcs/seasons. MT is taking its time and doing it right which probably feels wrong to people who haven't ever seen it done properly before.
loving the frieren series. i also like mushoku tensei. i don't think the path to redemption is linear. i don't think rewarding the protag through the forgiveness of other characters undermines the story. i also don't think condemning every negative trait is interesting because applying modern society sensibilities to a fantasy setting is just a pretty backdrop to preach to the audience about how to feel. i enjoy mushoku tensei because the world building, interactions, and nature of the characters put us at odds with the cast sometimes. i don't think frieren covers any of the same ground in that regard so those feelings aren't mutually exclusive. they're both top tier in my book but for completely different reasons.
I agree with you entirely, though I also can see where Pey was lost by the story. In my circle of friends, there are 2 of us who love Mushoku Tensei (though I prefer the LNs to the anime) and 3 of us who couldn't stand Rudy enough that they dropped it. I am a fantasy fanatic, and at this point in my life I prefer complex world building and complex characters. I have Mushoku Tensei, Frieren, Re Zero, Reign of the Seven Spellblades and Ascendence of a Bookworm, not wth my manga and other LNs, but with my Western Fantasy Series (Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, Tolkein, Terry Brooks, Jim Butcher). This is because, within their scopes, their worldbuilding is more akin to the epic fantasy series I grew up on rather than the generic isekai/fantasy LNs I went through a phase of reading.
Rudeus's story is not a generic isekai protagonist becomes an angel. Its a more realistic story about what would happen if one of the lowest scum were given another chance. Redemption, improvement are possible, since they know what happened in previous life and would want to avoid/change it. But nowhere near guaranteed. So are relapses and contradictions. Just like real life. To expect the story to condemn him is like expecting fate to condemn evil doers irl. Not gonna happen. Stop viewing media through the lens of your personal morality or expectations.
@@logikx1325 did those 3 ever give the manga or LN a shot? at least the manga I find does a better job with the framing of the issues than the anime. Beyond that, just to avoid posting multiple replies without reason, I'll reply to OP here too: jobless as a story does condemn the actions of Rudeus though, he himself does too, the world around him doesn't, and the story does a lot of what it's aiming to do by assuming you already understand that what he's doing is wrong, and then leveraging that understanding as it goes. It isn't a story about how these things are wrong, and it doesn't need to go out of its way to portray these things as wrong, it just needs to not portray these things as fine and lighthearted comedy, those aren't the same thing, and the anime often does portray rudeus's issues as a lot more lighthearted than they really are
I absolutely love every single video in this series you make, not only because it’s about a beautiful show, but because you help inspire me to write and give me ideas. For example, I’m tossing around the idea of a character who realizes they’ve been a part of a genocide, and have to grapple with that. Sort of like ender’s game or something.
i am so sorry man, i really like your channel, your style of speech and your insights about deeper meanings in anime BUT i can't watch your videos anymore because i HAVE TO FORGET as much frieren as i can so that in a few months i'll be enjoying it more when i rewatch the show. Keep up the great work
I rewatch Frieren every month (1 ep a day) and have the entire time since it ended. I still enjoy it every watch through, and still am noticing new subtle details and most of all, have really come to love the subtle references in the 2 ED MVs.
It reminds me of Trigun's spider and butterfly. Demons are merely a spider, but both the spider and butterfly are animals that exist. Being a butterfly doesn't make spiders evil.
* Trigun is such a good show ! Yes and no. Spider isn't evil, because he has no other choice than to obey by the laws of nature. But demons? For them it was a choice. Nor spider, nor a wolf, can breed livestock and cultivate land. But demons could do not only that, but they could just live with humans as a kin ! Wolves were our only rival in the foodchain, but instead of eradicating each other we enforced mutual traits of evolution to live with each other, under one roof even. What helped such relationship are the social tendencies of our both species. While demons are extreme solitary animals by nature. Still, being a solitaryr, like a Polar Bears, doesn't prevent you from having a farm with animals and crops. And after all, *so many* humans have *so many* screws loose that even absolute beasts like Polar Bears and even Chimps aren't safe from a snack and a pet on the head. If not made to kill humans by design, it could be only a matter of time for humanity to "domesticate" demons, to an extent. But demons are monsters, and monsters very nature is to kill humans, even if it goes against theyr very own self preservation and good interest. Demons are to humans what a Woodchipper is to trees. We physically *CAN'T* change how they were made to be.
The last part is important. People keep acting like framing isn't a thing. This is similar to my beef to redemption arcs where characters story doesn't act like what the person did was wrong in the first place. There are a lot of villains that felt like they were just sorry that their plans didn't work.
Great video! I've never seen any of the shows you talked about; but it was interesting hearing your analysis of them. Great to see nuanced opinions about media and your willingness to change your mind. Keep up the great work!
I think that was at the point of the whole deal with Himmel and the demon girl as well, to show that demons aren't an analogue for humans in any way, they are wholly different creatures. The demon girl couldn't fundamentally understand what it had done wrong no matter how hard she tried, because it's just thinking about hunting, and she probably saw the humans of the town like dolls at that point, if she got rid of another one then they could be happy cause everything would be back in the structure it thought was there.
I found that the lack of morality within the demons in this show IS what made them evil. they aren't evil because they want to be harmful, they act in reprehensible or what we consider evil ways because of their lack of understanding or concept thereof.
Your whole theory is based on the idea that demons kill to eat and survive therefore they are under the "VS nature" category. I disagree. Qual invaded the human lands and killed them for the sake of killing, using disintegrating magic which destroyed the body (food) anyway. Aura killed people to increase her army, not to eat them. Darht wanted to kill Frieren to gain the favor of the Graf Granat. Linie wanted to kill Stark because she was ordered. None of those actions came from a creature driven by its nature. Those are calculated, opportunistic actions to satisfy an artificial goal, way beyond what you could call natural instinct. They are evil monsters with their own evil desires beyond the need to eat
The demons don't need to infiltrate a city to bring down the entire barrier just to feed a handful of demons on the lives of thousands. if humans were essential it would be possible to snatch traders or pilgrims or perhaps a small village somewhere. And yeah "I killed your family and raised them as the dead so they can kill everyone else you love" is not the act of someone that simply has a minor case of the munchies.
I'm so fascinated by Demons treating language as a form of magic/combat. They do not fully understand it, but they've observed it long enough to know a word or an underline tone leads to a desire result. I have not seen much media respect communication analysis as scientific sub-genre. The demons are really fun because their inability to associate emotions with certain words results in a bigger sandbox to play in. Their dialogue is less focused on expressing themselves accurately and more focused on goal achievement.
Oh, that's not suffering. They can't even successfully interrogate 1 guy. When I play as a dark side Imperial agent in SWTOR, I make those 2 look like schoolyard pranksters, which they are.
Lügner enjoys killing as he stated himself but I don't see aura revel in suffering of humans. she just recicles the leftovers from her food as soldiers and not as a form of punishment but for pracmatical reasons. many humans are the same and like to make animals suffer before they kill it while others want a quick death for their prey. animal cruelty is still a real concerning thing around the world. with demons being sapient, they propably differ in how they hunt as well.
This reminds me of the vampires in Shiki, and the show arguing that it was only a curse, if they didn't eat, they would die, and the fact that they were weaker than the humans (that, after finding out about the vampires, killed them in a matter of days), and only trying to protect themselves. Awesome video!
I also love when demons aren't evil. It means the mana we can harvest from them by putting them into machine that torture them 24/7 isn't tainted by the negative plane, and can easily be refined into any kind of mana. Think of the economagical possibilities !
I also like that demons in this anime just don't show any empathy. That's the main difference between them and humans (/elves/dwarves etc.) and I think this makes for really good antagonists. They also can't be redeemed, because they just don't have the ability to feel empathy for another creature, even other demons. That's just how they are in this world and the fact that the pure lack of empathy is antagonized is just an excelent choice for a story in my opinion.
i have been watching for a while but just subscribed, i honestly didn't think you would be able to get so mush good content out of such a relatively short series, but i have loved your content and will continue to look forward to what comes next.
Alot of seemingly shallow critiques of Lolita make alot more sense when you look at the author's other works and see that sexualising minors is a running theme
That was what I was going to say. If you heard of a good anime and then they mention there's a rape...oh but its poetic its really done well! That's what they say! Then you struggle and watch it. Then your friend says to watch that writer's other works. And they're all rape stories. Okay its a madman that can sometimes write good too.
The only malice I think we EVER see a demon display is the absolute disgust that one blood magic dude has for Fern. He's genuinely upset to the point of insulting her for hiding her magic. He seems to look at that concept, magic suppression as worse than his death, the worst thing anyone could do. He literally says she's a disgrace to all mages, and that Frieren is also. He almost couldn't conceive of anyone ever doing that, to him suppressing magic is worse than using magic to kill.
I have to disagree on the topic of demons being meer animals acting on survival. There definitely is an element of pride and even racial superiority complex guiding their actions. Furthermore, while they often use worlds they don't don't understand to trick humans, they also do comunicate to express themselves. Qual shows genuin interest in the developement of magic during his absence. Aura put Frieren's restraint into question due to the fact that Himel is no longer there to scolled her. They even use worlds to comunicate with each others as seen with Lügner, Linie and Draht. To finish my point, demons don't even need to eat humans to survive. While it is a common practice, they are omnivors and many of them don't engage in such diets. Some even had a genuin desire to live in peace, wich would be impossible if they requiered human meat to survive. They eat humans for the same reason humans eat cows: tradition and the plesure of the taste. In fact, we don't see a single demon eating a human during the first season, implying that their war on humanity is one of extermination raser that survival. In essence, demons are not animals nor some mindeless force of nature. Rather, they are a race of psychopaths: beings born withought the ability to feel empathy. In human societies, psychopaths learn to act normally to conform to social norms. They do it based on observation and education. But demons are born alone, with no one to teach them how to act and nothing holding them back (a fact made even worse by the inerent sens of superiority they derive from their magical abilities). They see humans the way a kid would see ants: small and insignificant creatures that are fun to squash. Well that was long. Thanks to anyone who've red so far. Feel free to express any opinion you might have on my analysis and have a great day.
Saving to playlist, will watch after I've finished the series (finished episode 1 just before txting this.) I look forward to your work, funny magic man!
"What if demons didn't have to be evil?" You're a few decades late to be asking that question. Anime has had a glut of nuanced or misunderstood demons for ages
First of all, I can't stress this enough when I say I've really been enjoying the "Exploring Frieren" series you put out, after finishing the first season of the anime I caught myself falling into the TH-cam loophole of people discussing the anime and manga and I found your takes in particular very reasonable and well explained. With that being said I think the idea of Demon's not acting out of pure malice is extremely well fitting, it's somewhat similar to Übel as a character where you later on realize she can show compassion. I also strongly believe in the idea that demons are more described like somewhat sentient animals in the show, though there are signs that completely flip this idea on it's head. Especially when Frieren fought Aura where she displays her status (mana) to a human even though it shouldn't matter if they're practically looking for food. Sure these signs can be found in the animal kingdom where animals play with their prey. The difference here is that demons, actively compare themselves to human and their mana, like they're trying to be seen as somewhat equal or superior. I may speculate a lot here but I believe this is all somewhat intentional, the idea that Demon's should have been at their lowest point after Frieren's first party slayed the demon king, yet they still fight and actively hunt, keeping themselves around is something I believe the story wants to explore later on. I believe there is this strong mismatch of balance where demon's are more than just animals, reason for that statement is: all demons are able to use magic and detect mana. Animals in the series aren't able to use mana at all, they can detect it but they don't have mana themselves or can't access it by whatever reason. Demon's on the other hand do have full access and even shaped magic in that regard. Monsters of demonic nature like the Spiegel or Einsam are capable while some other monsters can't. No idea why or where the line is drawn here but it seems extremely odd to me that Demons are THAT different to the other Monsters of the series. Considering the demon castle is close to where "Heaven" is makes me believe this ultimately will turn into the idea exploring gods and their purpose, religion itself holds a high value in the series but hasn't been deeply explored aside from the characters surrounding it like Heiter or Kraft. I like to think demons were part of that religion, created by a god in hopes to create an equilibrium between humans and demons which was and still is heavily unbalanced even after defeat of the demon king.
I think there are a couple issues at hand. What does it mean to be evil. And what are the risks of essentializing some nature to all demons? I think it is probably true that by nature demons are generally amoral in a human context. But I don't think it is right to essentialize demons as no evil but amoral. I think there's plenty to suggest that at least some would be considered evil in as much we colloquially understand evil. While most of us would reasonably not consider a bear that attacks people as evil, Frieren's demons have more capacity to understand and enjoy the harm they inflict. There are absolutely signs that some demons gain a remorseless satisfaction from their victory over their intelligent prey. If evil means anything at all, what more does it require?
I think it’s wild how people couldn’t understand that the demons are part of the “person vs nature” conflict. It’s literally spelled out right in front of you at every possible moment and it still somehow cannot be understood by people.
The demons aren't acting in only self preservation, they are 100% evil. They can take a liking the humans some of the time, but as the manga goes on we come to see they're not just animals.
I'm in the midst of a sketch of a demon who is self-actualized, or acting in her own (dis-)interest: and the cost of that. This study resonated with what I am composing. My stories are told from everyone's perspective, in that there isn't a 'good guy' and a 'bad guy,' or nor that the protagonist's story is the only one, nor is the only story that matters in the story. My hero's journey isn't an arch: it's a continuum, or continuation. There isn't a beginning, middle, nor end, there's: "What am I going to do today?" "Who am I?" "What matters? ... and why?" I think an 'end' trivializes the journey and trivializes its own end. You're done with being good? Can that, being good, or even simply being, ever come to completion? What does it mean to be a demon, that objectifies every human person, feeds off them, but then ... what? What is the point of existence? To exist? "How, then, shall we live?" I think this question has to be tackled head-on, and daily. Is existence a terrible thing? I think demons are very well-positioned to ask this question, and maybe to answer it. I'm glad you took the demons' perspective, and asked the questions from them and what matters to them. Few look beyond demonizing others. Ich und du.
for Jobless Reincarnation, the anime adaptation does muddy the issue. There are 3 conflicts in Jobless, person vs self and person vs society are the 2 that are relevant here though, his new society tries to convince him his old ways were right, with his growth over time being an active effort in spite of his circumstances. Jobless is about redemption and the active efforts for self improvement necessary for that redemption to be meaningful, but in the anime? It does make light of a lot of the moments where bad things are happening, a lot more than it does at least in the manga (haven't read the LN, or WN, but have heard things), moments the manga at least took the effort to frame in the serious light it needed to be presented in, without being overbearing and just telling you "obviously this is bad" it does a better job balancing the 2 conflicts, it acknowledges "in this world, this is the norm, and in this world, the consequences of these actions are relatively limited" but not presenting them all sing songy either, a big part of the premise originally was assuming the reader has basic empathy and morals and leveraging those feelings in order to convey the point, we all know watching a video of an underage child naked when you're supposed to be at your parents funeral is a horrid thing to do and not something a good person would do, it didn't need to go out of its way to tell you that, it used that existing understanding to get across just how messed up Rudeus is as a person. The anime adaptation is visually stunning and incredibly good in that department, but in regards to how it handles the story, it takes a story that unavoidably needs a lot of care put into the writing, and muddies the point with an over-reliance on conveying things more light heartedly to make it more palatable, while in the process making it lose a lot of the existing appeal to the story. I would highly recommend reading one of the other versions of the story given what you've said about it here
This is what that guy was missing who made that video about Frieren's demons that is being picked apart by a bunch of TH-camrs right now. They aren't evil, but also not "redeemable." They have their own morality and they are simply unable to understand ours, and there is no way to reconcile humankind and demonkind. That video creator was unable to understand how these things can fit together.
I see a few jokes here and there about Frieren being racist, so hearing someone's reason as to why was interesting. Out of curiosity I decided to read the bible one day. I found it refreshing when I first got into Frieren because from my perspective, Frieren treats the religious source material with respect. I've always felt uncomfortable with, "The Demon King is Discriminated Against" animes, because I don't know where the line is between creative choices, ignorance and religious appropriation. I'm no expert, but it seems like the biblically accurate demon is suppose to be similar to what Frieren's demons are like, but instead of killing and eating you after manipulating you, they convince you to waste your life doing sinful things and end up in hell with them. I can understand why orcs, werewolves or kobolds are used as a source to represent discrimination, but demons, particularly in Frierens context, are not too different from zombies.
Completely non-religious myself, I just find history interesting, including the evolution of religion. So not an expert with probably a skewed view but from what I've observed; Modern demons are often less based on the text of the Bible itself, but rather the perception of them through the church's doctrine over the past few centuries. Demons in the text represent the intrusive thoughts that drive people to do 'sinful acts', which can be defined as 'things the current society/leader/church thinks are wrong' - while in the doctrine they are explicitly 'evil manipulators out to get you', the former makes them innate hazards, a fact of life to push past, while the latter as personified evil. This shift is most obvious with the Lucifer -> Satan drift - in the original texts, Lucifer is the literal 'devil's advocate', a contrarian to god to make sure that all decisions face proper review so they never overstep or lead to unexpected harm, but post Christianity they became the embodiment of evil and not to be trusted. (The reason this shift happened is probably 'the church/state didn't want people questioning them all the time so they made the contrarian evil') - with the latter interpretation being the primary one today, demons are portrayed as 'intelligent beings that are evil', rather than 'a part of nature', which is only a half step away from 'intelligent beings that are *thought* to be evil'. As a complete aside, the 'demons as an allegory for racism/xenophobia' are exactly that most of the time - a foreign power/people from a usually resource-sparse homeland invading abundant lands, which causes them to be villanized, one could say 'demonized', by the people of the abundant lands for no reason beyond the act of invasion. (Invasion in this context can be hostile (conquest) or non-hostile (mass migration, refugees, etc)). These are demons in only name since they are usually just humans with some quirks, or just straight-up humans with no quirks - what makes them 'demons' to the people of the abundant lands is their connection to their homeland and the invasion, not the people themselves. This mirrors plenty of IRL events, both recent and historical, but to avoid alerting *that* crowd I'll leave them unnamed here.
Anime demons have a lot more to do with Buddhist asura and comparable entities like oni, kishin, rakshasa, etc. 'Demon' is an extremely loose naming convention and is often a feature of English translation of words with a different connotation in the Japanese cultural context. Furthermore, modern Japanese have a very strained relationship with religion, especially organized religion. It would better to think of their depictions of 'demons' as more comparable to Gnosticism than mainstream Christian literature.
@@NevisYsbryd tbf, organized religion has been rather antagonistic to most of the world for most of history, Japan just has had a lot of other elements of their society in response to their ways synergizing with it, which resulted in their views on it even more solidified as largely not good
@@tkgaming2385 and yeah, the history behind the abrahamic faiths is fascinating, so much of it boils down to a new church forming because someone wanted more power and saw growing distrust of the existing church, or the existing church changing their faith in order to maintain their power, but so much of the context surrounding those environmental factors that enabled that power play to work, or the impact those changes had is absolutely astonishing. and yeah, remember that god created **ALL** things in the christian faith, including "evil" but originally, who god even was was under debate, if you go far enough back, there's a greater god, and then a few lesser beings as the ones who directly created the world, and if you branch off to the demons, the overall views of the christian devils is a particularly interesting one, because Satan and Lucifer are 2 separate demons that exist simultaneously in a number of points along this timeline, alongside Beelzebub, and a few others, with most of these all being fallen angels, and if you look at other faiths, as the other reply before me mentioned, demons exist in so many faiths, and in most of them, they're usually a mixed bag, yokai are sometimes translated as demons, sometimes oni is translated as demon, and in Japan, demon doesn't necessarily mean it's evil by default, they usually specify that they mean an evil one, because they never assumed all of them were evil, more commonly, they view most as just a nuisance and no worse, with the evil ones being specific outliers, rather than the norm, the concept has a different connotation from place to place and yeah, americans were often called evil demons by the japanese during the wars, in part because of propoganda, but in part, because as far as they were concerned, they weren't them, they were alien and they were dangerous, that sounds like a demon to me when it's described like that, and that's a lot more of the current mentality of what demons are as well, an alien creature who's evil, simple as that, and that's how people viewed people overseas when they never interacted much with the rest of the world
@@tomykong2915 Every formal group ever has had an antagonistic relationship with any other group with competing or conflicting interests. The history of organized religion is no worse than secular powers or mercantile businesses. Japan, specifically, was subject to a counter-propaganda movement by the state as a reaction to the previous wave of state propaganda deifying the emperor in the form of state-sanctioned Shintoism and earlier conflicts including Buddhism. Modern atheist ideology is no different. Most other nations do not share Japan's level of hostility towards what is regarded as organized religion.
You brought up language and recognition, which reminded me that only a handful of creatures on earth have the ability to remember things outside of the time they occurred. Of course I can’t remember what this is called (it’s 8:23 am, so cut me some slack), but humans, ants, and ravens are 3 of the 4 who have this ability. Meaning a raven can fly over a meal, fly back to the rest of its flock, tell them where the meal is, and then take them there. Dogs, of course, can be trained to do something similar, but it’s not relying on its memory and use of language to communicate with other dogs, it’s using things like smell and rewards. Ravens will also bargain with each other, and they’ll remember who screwed them over in the flock last time, and will refuse to deal with that particular bird again. I found that to be incredibly fascinating, and since you reminded me of it I need to go look up the term. The 4th may be chimps, but don’t quote me on that. Anyway, I felt inspired to share for anyone who thought that was cool.
This was very well written and helped me organize and better understand some of the thoughts and feelings that I already held prior to this. I'm going to post my extra thoughts after I talk about the video so feel free to not read the second paragraph if you don't want a tangent on the strange thoughts that the video helped me put into words. As far as the bit about Mushouku Tensei goes, I also feel like the show hasn't been as great in the second season because Rudeus is no longer the bad guy that you're rooting for to get better, he's no longer the one that we're expected to see fault in. He's now the one that we're expected to believe is showing others the fault in themselves. That "vs. Society" as you put it. I still think that there have been some moments of noticeable character growth, but they have been much fewer and farther between because it is less introspective now. And as far as the demons of Frieren go, that moment that Frieren says "aren't you?" immediately stuck with me when I first saw it because it told me exactly what I needed to know about the demons of that world from the person that best understood them; they are wild animals that eat people. Frieren does not speak in superfluous ways, doesn't throw around metaphors or think irrationally. She was aware of a clear and present danger that others did not understand. To me, the demons in Frieren remind me of psychopaths. I've always found it odd that people will call psychopaths "not human" and follow that up with judging them as evil. I also think that they are not human but as a result, have always had a difficult time seeing them as evil. They are almost always dangerous, sure. But bears aren't evil. People just see psychopaths and say that they are not human to vilify them instead of understanding that they have had the things most people consider the foundations of being human stripped from them and, as a result, are actually a different animal. They are dangerous and should be treated as such, but they are not evil. They are just like the demons in Frieren. The human face and language only hold value to them as tools. Their two driving forces are similar; to find enjoyment for themselves at any cost (sometimes by metaphorically or even literally eating people) and to preserve themselves. They are scary, but so are tornadoes and tsunamis. Bears and sharks. They just look more like us.
Your choice to include footage of Heavenly Delusion in particular has me really curious about your thoughts on the ending of S1 though. Personally, I found it painfully unnecessary if not disrespectful. It felt like stepping in feces in an otherwise beautiful garden of foreshadowing and mystery. Anyway, you got me thinking and I'm not sure where I stand myself on that, though I find myself trending in the same direction. Making demons more "nature" than "unknown" is indeed interesting, that said, I do think they still fit quite well in the unknown category. Where does nature end and unknown begin? I find that demons stand out compared to other elements that are referred to as "natural" in the Frieren universe. They're quite distinct from monsters, but also felt quite distinct from magical beasts. I think they're meant to stand as another civilization, just like dwarves, humans, and elves. If so, then the nuance is kind of expected. They're all just individuals, with the potential to be good or evil, but generally pushed in one direction by nature. Frieren herself sees them as animals, but she is biased and we're shown why.
And if you don't think about it at all, you fall into depravity yourself. Perpetrating heinous things and yet believing yourself to be among the righteous.
My personal take with the demons is that they are a lot like frieren. Yes they fight to sustain be the deamons also don’t know what to do with their infinite time a lot like frieren. They both don’t show emotion, both under estimate newer opponents, and critically don’t understand humans. I think these deamons are a reflection of what frieren would have been like without her party and her teacher.
Absolutely wrong on a fundamental level. Frieren is an elf whom has emotions, but isn't very great at displaying them even all the way back when she first met Flamme. Demons cannot and I mean physically cannot comprehend emotions other then self preservation. The Demons lack humanity which is absolutely opposite of elves as they seem to have humanity, but live just as long. Flamme might have kick started Frieren's more generous and helpful nature, but she had to have such emotions to begin with to nurture. I don't view Frieren and Demons as two sides of the same coin, but two different coins that are roughly the same size.
@@Al_Greg I think what op means how alien elves and demons are effectively aliens to humans, but frieren is different because she actually makes an effort to connect with mortals.
Frieren lived peacefully in the central reason for a millennia as civilization grew around her, while Aura appears to have spent the better part of her 500 trying to annihilate the city that grew up under the barrier Flamme planted there.
@@Al_Greg yeah, Frieren has always shown emotion, just in subdued ways (which is common for mages in this series regardless of their species due to it assisting in mana control, as seen when we see demons and elves who are not mages and much more openly emotional). Frieren is also quite happy with her near-infinite time, her regrets have to do with not valuing the time of others enough.
as a manga reader, I must say the fact that you had these thoughts with just the anime portion and the particular method you chose to prove your thesis on demons makes me realize how good and consistent the author is at writing the story's antagonist from the very start as well as planting crucial info for the audience to figure out how they aren't evil. one major arc in the manga will surely be a great treat for your interpretation. the next part is just a personal explanation of your conclusion on how it adds to the story. if demons are not evil, then the war between humankind and demonkind isn't the war between good and evil. its nature is a war for survival, our protagonists aren't heroes of justice and yet their greatness doesn't fall off because they are remembered not for justice but mainly for helping people in need. this is the entire premise of Himmel's heroism, which inspired events that led to Frieren's current journey.
This is one of the coolest videos I've seen about Frieren, and I'm damn near close to watching all of them. You've brought new weight to lines that I really took for granted, highlighting "Well aren't you?" specifically. I know I'm going to come back to this video in a week and have something else to think about. I appreciate the way you highlighted Mushuko as well, it was frustrating seeing the show was loved by so many people, but everything seemed to eventually boil down to "The worst person you know is challenged by almost nothing and grows very little", and you really put to words so much of what I was struggling with trying to handle the dissonance between season 1 to season 2.
Calling them demons in all of these shows is mostly the result of a translation error (that goes both ways) that has evolved over the years. I say this as an anime fan. The cultural context matters, here. If you go back a century, before the cultural exchange between the US and Japan, you'd struggle to get anyone in the west to recognize what the Japanese call 'demons' in these shows as demons. They're really more like Fey spirits. Dangerous, sexy, mercurial, and often misunderstood.
Demons, fey, and spirits are fairly synonymous words. In Greek, the work for spirit is daimōn, and the term doesn’t presuppose the morality of the spirit. The word for a good demon/spirit is agathosdaimōn and a kakodaimōn is an evil spirit.
@@Brian-qt6su Right, but while western culture definitely traces roots to Greece, I think we have more in common with the modern Japanese than we do with ancient Greece.
@@Brian-qt6su yes, and just because words sound the same, they somehow hold the same meaning across different cultures? if we follow that logic, then the daemons in any show aren't bad, they simply are processes running in an unix system so there is no evil or good, they just follow a set of instructions! like what the fuck did you smoke to reach that conclusion?
@@Carakav So? Most cultures have a class of lesser divinities in their mythology/belief systems. Whether you call them daimons, fairys or spirits is irrelevant. It isn't a translation error. Demon, fey, or simply spirit would fit what they're trying to accomplish.
2:35 that's actually one of those myth ones like lemmings running off cliffs. They only do that when starved but otherwise the same rules as any other insect applies: feed the mate or become the food.
You should have given examples for your argument about MT. Because it's hard to follow your argument when you talk about season 2 w/o showing any evidence. Which I know the topic is about sexuality so it's harder to show. But I remember season 2 (cour 1) being much less sexually hyper than season 1. So it felt weird hearing your take.
Demon in Demon Slayer: Just a disease mutated into something else Demon in Mushoku ga Tensei: Just like human just more eccentric Demon in Frieren: A force of nature and simply nature's creation Demon in Berserk: 💀
Kinda feel bad for this guy expecting anything of Mushoku Tensei. For anyone familiar with web novels, it's always been one of the originators of the "isekai reincarnation wish fulfillment" genre
If you like demons as not evil beings I recommend reading "The one within the villainess". It talks about the demonization of a race that is, apart of being used to bad magic and dying more slowly to it, very close to humans.
Tf you talking about, they very clearly made the demons in frieren just evil as opposed to other media where they have redeeming qualities the demons in Frieren are probably one of the first times I’ve seen demons portrayed as just evil
Completely wrong kindergarten interpretation for Demons in Frieren... Is your cat evil for killing, bisecting and maiming birds, even if she ate a large bowl of food just an hour ago? No it is not, because it is in the cats instincts to kill and deceive birds. Demons in Frieren are just wild beasts that can talk, they do not even has the capacity to feel or understand evil like any animal, hence they can not be evil. To be evil means that you also need to have the capacity to be good, which Demons do not have. Wild and dangerous beasts that need to be put down? Yes. But putting them down is not some grand act of moral victory, but an act of Darwinian self preservation, that is what this guy is telling you.
I wouldn't say the moral of the story in S2 were that his "bad actions" were rewarded. The message portrayed was Rudeus' relationship and judgement of his father that kept the two alienated from one another. Culminating in Rudeus' father sacrificing himself to save his son and Rudeus' realizing that he's not better of a man than his father. Which broke the disgust Rudeus had about his father's adultery. Even if it was post mortem.
"I know that demons do not raise their children. You're born in isolation, and you raise yourself. So why do you call us mother?"
"....Because it stops you from killing us."
I was reading a vampire webcomic, and at one point one of the vampires said to a vampire hunter “We’re not monsters, we’re just fulfilling our part of the food chain!” Which is true, but I was disappointed that they tried to present it like that made humans the bad guys. Because if vampires are the humans predator species, than humans are justified in fighting back against them. Many prey species in nature are ruthless at defending themselves and their kin
I mean, I would make any such predators extinct. So, that's not a smart claim to make.
To which the proper response is “so was the sapertooth cat and California grizzly. You don’t see any of those around because humans really don’t like it when things try to eat us.”
@@mojus2890 you would but enough people wont. we have countles girls, who whooo over vampire fiction and see themselves on the recieving end of the bite. some people like dangerous animals like tigers as pets. so claiming that they can be reasoned with somehow can help sometimes.
why be disappointed? one of the best ways to write a villain is to make them believe theyre doing nothing wrong while also giving them a twisted worldview. it helps us to learn what evil looks like
@@kyriss12Neither are native to where humans originally evolved from and humans are the invasive species
The reason I love demons in Frieren is because the author explicitly made Demons as close to human as possible. I think that the minute differences made between humans and demons help speak to what it means to be human and why I think the overall thesis of Frieren is about learning to be human. The contrasts the author puts against humans is so loud when you think about how close they are to actually being human. Frieren isn't about the long lives or mortality that makes someone human. Its about connection and someone who lives on the border of human and demon.
WUT? Demons in Frieren if you look carefully arent "made" to be as close to human as possible. The old demons, from prievious generation most seem to be monstrous like Qual. They were ugly and inhuman and were eventually phased outta existence. From what I can tell it's only the last generation of demons that resembles humans and are very cute and sexy basically as means to gain upper hand. All the huge ugly monsters like Qual are gone. They were ineffective. So demons evolved to be cute instead. They werent always like that.
IDK the demons seemed irredeemable to me. As explained in the show, demons are humanoid monsters who can speak. And all monsters are biologically bound to universal psychopathy. Think of Ted Bundy, but as a whole branch of the animal kingdom. That's pretty far away from the baseline from your average human.
I dislike them for the exact same reason. They are treated as some sort of human mimicking monsters but... so far they didn't show them to be monsters.
They speak and act as humans even when they are alone or when that would actually cause problems to them (Like Aura questioning why Frieren didn't just destroy her army like she had done before) so it doesn't really feel like they are faking their humanity.
I agree. I feel that Frieren as a whole is about what it means to be human and how that has more to do with the connections we make and the journeys that we take rather than just the amount of things we do or the goals we accomplish. It very much feels like a meditation on the purpose of existing as a human rather than a simple humans = good, demons = bad sort of story.
@@elissaforteThat's the beauty of it. From a general glace, the demons appear to be human, but the author has explicitly put forth that they are unredeemable and can not coexist. So now, we have to put a close lens on demons and look at the tiny differences because, to the author, those are the differences between human and beast.
If you aren't convinced that demons are meant to be unredeemable by the show,I would mainly suggest reading further into the manga. That's probably the more compelling argument. Outside of that, Frieren's initial concept was a gag manga about an elf that hated demons. Since it was a core idea in Frieren's conception, you can bet the author put a lot of thought into demons being the way they are.
With Frieren being our lens into this world, we are presented Demons being unforgivable beasts. There is pushback to this idea in the story but it is always swiftly countered. This is intentional. We are to think of demons as anything but human, despite our instincts telling us that they are.
Oh, how you'll love the next big arc. You'll absolutely adore El Dorado.
With Malice mentioned 5 times in the video I am so spiraling to think if he hasn't read it yet
@@TH_Sofa I haven't read any frieren manga yet, just building off the 1st season. No spoilers!! haha
El dorado boutta be fire for sureee
if that Arc will be a 2,5 hour movie with title "Frieren : The Mage of Flower againt Everlasting Gold" i'll be in the theatre 6 hour before it premiere
I tend to think of El Dorado to be like a curious cat trying to understand its prey. But I can’t wait for Pey’s perspective 😆
Humans: What drives you to such cruelty and wickedness?
Demons: lmao get fucked idk what that is
That sums it up exactly
That's the fiction.
If you research the demons detailed in The Bible, you'll see that demons chose to fall, and knew full well that they'd be damned for eternity and suffer for eternity, and they still chose to fall.
@@hariman7727 literally no one is talking about abrahamic demons.
also, "that's the fiction" seems to suggest that the stories detailed in the bible are non-fiction under this context.
@@thalmorjusticiar1 The stories detailed in the Bible _are_ non-fiction, true.
@@hariman7727 The one third went along with Lucifers lies, after all he was a known figure in heaven at the time. I bet some only realized what happened when Micheal responded, falling into the new created universe. Then, over the millennia they would of become increasingly insane/corrupted from their original selves.
Here's a pretty big wrench to throw into this theory. The thing is, demons in Frieren don't need to eat humans, they just want to. More so, this desire to kill overpowers logical reasoning to the point of running contrary to self preservation. That is why they are considered monsters.
Monsters as a whole aren't natural creatures, that's why they crumble into dust upon death. In most medieval manga monsters as a trope or not a part of nature but instead a result of magic and thus aren't truly alive, providing protagonists easy targets to kill. Frieren does make it more complicated by making them intelligent with ability to reason, but at the same time it doesn't step away from them being monsters.
Demons just aren't actual people, you can think of them like a artificial intelligence with purpose of killing humans. Their ancestor species where just imitating sounds to lure people, now gaining logic and intelligence after evolving, yet the purpose stays the same. Although, in later chapters we can see that this process is still going, and some demons begin to understand humanity better. Which only makes them more dangerous.
But demons are alive. They have souls and they have sentience. Maybe not “alive” in the traditional form but still
@@impulseelectrobrine1259 but for demons their sentience is just another tool to kill humans and satisify their desire to kill in more effective ways. i think demons soley exist as a means to show that misplaced empathy is dangerous
@@nathanperquin9910 but the fact that they have goals and desires just solidifies the fact that they do have sentience
@@nathanperquin9910 further more demons also have hobbies outside of killing humans. Linie likes apples and lügner loves fighting for example
@@impulseelectrobrine1259so like skme animals
Look there’s like 3 ways that I think I commonly see in fiction
1. Evil, they’re the enemies of the main characters usually sadistic and mentally fucked so viewers would never agree with them
2. They’re hot as fuck
3. The word “demon” is used for what is essentially another race of people in a multi-race fantasy world
Demons in frieren is monster specie, not a human race like dwarf or elf
Somehow the three can be applicable at the same time.
the reason ALL humanoid demons in frieren are attractive is because it helps them deceive humans. thats it. its another camouflage
I think they're doing 3 with Tsukimichi. There is a race of demons, but they actually seem to be a group of other races that previously inhabited the world and were displaced when the goodness arrived with her humans. So the war they wage against humans is mostly just them taking back their lands.
I would need to read the novels to fully understand that, but I really don't want to, so the spoilers I got will have to suffice for now.
It's because Japan does not have christian heritage. From their perspective a demon is not the personification of evil, but a humanoid with non-human features such as wings, tails or horns. Effectively a demi-human.
There's a manga arc which follows very briefly after the end of the anime material which involves the Demon Macht. It's really an opportunity for Kanehito Yamada to go further in depth with the nature of demons, as the arc is primarily about Macht spending years sincerely attempting to understand humanity through pointed conversations and observation while walking among them pretending to have been made harmless by magic. It really conveys how alien the mindset the demon's is to a human - and vice versa - while displaying the interiority of a demon who isn't actively seeking power or conquest.
It's my favourite arc . I especially liked how they executed the ending.
Yes its interesting because they are a demons and human laws and emotions or what we call the norm does not apply to them. Its one of my favourite arc and it also shows that demons like Macht who pursue understanding with humans are the most dangerous.
bro just casually spoiled things that are only learned at the later parts of the arc 🤣
@@Re_V😅 they're really just pulling All this out. Hope the guy didn't see this. Thankfully I saw them talking about and stopped before I read on. I know I only and I wish to stay that way
@@Re_V as a person that already knows the arc i consider this a minor spoiler. Its not going to affect your experience in my opinion
I didn't expect this series to get better and expand to comparing other shows artfully,
but again you continue to impress with having more meaningful things to share about the show we all enjoyed.
oh u will be completely proven wrong in future seasons :D, the demons are heavily expanded on.
Next arc would be even fire than the season 1 arc. Spoiler : Edel 😳
6:15 Pey: *says demons are only acting on self preservation*
Also Pay: *shows a scene where a demon attacks someone for no other reason than because they can and gets themself killed for having done so*
From an evolutionary behavior standpoint, demons living in caves benefited from attacking humans, but the moment they emerged humans were no longer reliable prey, there were infinitely better options. Especially now that they looked humanoid, they could use their body shape as a form of mimicry to hunt species who had become friends with humans, or simply pretend to be human and blend in, but instead they attack the species they would have gained most from becoming symbiotic with, which they wouldn't even have to try very hard to do. Neither the show or manga offer a reason demons need to eat specifically humans aside from nutrients and availability during early evolution, adventurers wandering into dark caves, so even prior to attaining sapience they should have already switched food sources, unless there's some factor we've missed.
You'd have to also factor in fantastical elements with a huge leap of imagination to make sense of the evolution of demons in the world of Frieren.
The demons evolved to feed on humans because humans are the best sources of mana. Unlike humans, mana is the demon's literal life force that needs replenishment from an outside source. They're literally made of mana that needs constant input of external mana sources to maintain their form. How do we know this? Unlike humans, when demons die they completely disintegrate into thin air.
While that is as good as a headcannon, it's still logically sound in a world where mana is an essential element of existence.
I love your comment, but I mostly wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you using SAPIENCE correctly instead of throwing the overused (and 99.99% of the time, wrongly) word "sentience" when actually speaking of "sapience" lmao.
Ik my reply might seem random, but I'm so tired of seeing people on Internet (even authors, gosh...) use "sentience" instead of "sapience" (obviously when indeed speaking of "sapience").
Heck, even in my own WIP universe, I use the word a lot and my advisors/friends early on would ask me if I meant "sentience" 🗿🗿
" unless there's some factor we've missed" It's that the demons are evil.
I mean, one problem with that is no species really is just friends with humans (unless you mean other humanoids but, same issue). Wild animals almost invariably fear humans when humans move into the area with very few exceptions - and honeyguides aren’t good eating, really - and domestic animals are often just as heinous to try to attack as a human is because of how human pack-bonding works.
I’ll admit I haven’t watched the series, but it could be a specialization thing. Targeting humans at this point might be more instinctual than strictly necessary, and I have my doubts they’d be able to ally with humans after the long history of eating them - even if only in caves beforehand. It’d be like a fox trying to befriend chickens and mice, they’re simply not built to innately recognize them as more than prey. Hell, even humans have some issues with this kind of thing, though mostly culturally learned rather than properly instinctual, and usually relegated to speech rather than to action - I think we’ve all at least heard of someone joking about eating chicken when someone mentions having a pet chicken after all, haven’t we?
@@franckymagines that shit still puzzles me to this day. what is the difference between sapience and sentience.
I dont think the demon arc is really about the question of "what is evil". In the beginning we're led on to believe that the demons are essentially misunderstood humans with horns, but quickly this is shown to be nothing but an illusion. The demons really are "evil", or rather the embodiment of everything humans consider to be evil, as you said, they dont necessarily act straightforwardly out of malice. But i think this is beside the point. The point, I think, that Frieren is trying to illustrate is that in life sometimes there are forces that simply wish for your destruction, they may have more nuanced motivations then simply being evil, like "self preservation" or "survival" but at the end of the day they want to harm you. Frieren also attempts to show the audience that sometimes the best aspects of our nature, our kindness our generosity, when combined with naivete, act as footholds for those forces to enter our lives, to lead lead us to ruin. And so the best thing to do is to remain vigilant and ready to fight, to not be taken in by our own wishful thinking, to see the threats around us for what they are, regardless of whether or not they are truely "evil". This question of "are the demons evil, or a force of nature" is more a by product of Frieren's attempt to subvert the trope of the "misunderstood bad guys" by reminding the audience that, just because the demons are "wild beasts" acting out their programming, doesnt change the fact that youre survival depends on see thru their tricks, and defeating them.
this is so spot on more than the snowflake creator of this video
Something to say as I am half way through the video and you mentioned this twice. Demons DO NOT need to eat humans to live. This is specifically stated. And yet they do. I feel like this is heavily important in a discussion on weather these demons are evil and what evil is.
We don't need to eat meat to live. Lions don't need to eat humans to live yet I would not get very close to one. The point is in Frieren demons are more like animals/monsters. Humans happen to be their preferred morsel.
It's more like they were just monsters who evolved specifically to be able to hunt humans and humanoid creatures, hence their ability to study, copy and use magic to appear more similar to elves, make use of a longer lifespan to trick dwarves and lie about emotion in order to get closer to humans.
Yeah I think Pey is off the mark with this one. He seemed so afraid that “Demon” was some sort of racist dog whistle that he did everything he could to distance it from that when he found he was actually compelled by the story.
It’s not even to say that Demons would or wouldn’t be evil because they needed to eat humans to live (as if something can’t be evil because it acts out of necessity, “necessary evil” being a well accepted term).
The nature of something can just be evil. I’ve seen plenty of evidence that human nature itself can be rooted in evil. There are people whose nature breeds malice and no one had to teach that to them.
It seems like no one had to teach Demons malice either. Maybe they just never had the capacity to deny that nature and evolve to be something better?
Sometimes the villain can just be a villain and doesn’t have to be a commentary on social justice.
I guess that would still make the story one of “self vs nature”
I feel like demons are more like monsters that evolved in order to specifically hunt humanoids. That's why they're able to copy magic to appear similar to elves, that's why they have long lifespans that they use to hone a single craft (usually involving killing) to relate to dwarves and that's why they pretend to have emotions to prey on humans more easily.
@@daviddap71 some humans do need to eat meat to live. well i guess you are talking about the average ideal healthy human.
This is very interesting to me, because I had the complete opposite reaction of that the demons were finally just evil, they weren’t humans that just had horns and acted bad with strong powers or something. They were actually different and evil. There is no peace treaty to bargain with. I feel like in other media, demons are just what I explained earlier. Different humans. Bad people that just need to be understood to be able to have peace with. I’m not saying I hate that, I’m just tired of seeing it so much and Frieren demons were such a breath of fresh air for me.
They aren't evil, though. They are wild beasts. Polar bears will kill and eat any human they can get their hands on. They can't be trained or made safe to be around, but they aren't evil. Frieren's demons are the same.
Evolved demons no less.
To be evil, but to primarily use manipulation instead of pure power, is more aligned with the past depictions of demons or what we see in the Bible.
It really is fresh to just see evil being evil, not misunderstood or something. Just wholly evil by nature, and in a way that can't be broken
Yea demons in frieren are naturally evil but still sentient and real. And I love that. It felt so fresh and "new"
You could almost compare them to psychopaths (as in you cant really understand them and Just see them as evil)
@@kyuriht yeah, exactly!
@@Aizelav I think you both missed the point. Frieren calls it out very specificly. They are wild beasts. They are dangerous and violent, but they aren't evil any more than a polar bear is.
As a Japanese person I wanted to give insight to Mushoku Tensei title. The actual full title in Japanese is ” Mushoku Tensei: I will seriously try in another world”. I feel like this title is important because it essentially says the entire theme of the story in the title. “TRY” is the big factor that this story always emphasizes.
I believe Mushoku is interested in asking the question "Do you or will you regret it? Than try your best to do something about it." Rudeus regrets not taking action in his previous life but never regrets being a horn dog. That is why Rudeus in this life still has the same tendency but tries his absolute hardest to learn magic.
But I also don't think MT is saying "Just trying will get you results" as there is many time characters who tries their absolute hardest fails. But what that action give is closure. You may have not gotten the result you wanted but at least you tried... I believe that is what MT is trying to convey.
I agree. A lot of people say MT is about a second chance. A second chance... at what? Well, it's about a second chance at simply living. Part of living is making mistakes - thousands of them. Part of it is also about being inconsistent, hypocritical, being an asshole - all the ugly things we have all done and experienced and try to push to the back of our minds. MT isn't a diluted story that tells us of a scumbag becoming a paragon. It's a story of a scumbag given another chance to LIVE, make mistakes, make himself and others happy, love, be hurt, hurt others - all of that and more.
@@akaneriyun4774 Exactly that, and that's why I love it. Rudy does get punished for being a horndog, but it shows just how human he is that he only really learns on a case by case basis. He pervs on Lilia and Roxy until Lilia tells him to stop. He accidentally undresses Sylphy thinking that she was a boy, and doesn't perv on her afterwards to anywhere near the same extent he did Lilia and Roxy. He pervs on Eris until she beats the crap out of him, and is then on his best behaviour across the entire Demon Continent. Rudy reprimands Aisha when she offers a "reward" to him, saying kids shouldn't say things like that (hypocritical, sure, but also good and responsible). And then he and Eris sleep together, after which her letter utterly destroys him to the point that when he meets Sara, he just *_can't_* perv on her. He's just too damn depressed to even try.
When he and Sylphy get married, it isn't the aphrodisiac or even the _act_ that cures him, it's the knowledge that someone loves him for who he is, ugly faults and terrible mistakes all. And while he broke his promise, it was a promise that Sylphiette never planned on holding against him, so long as he didn't go to a _brothel._ In other words, expanding the family's all good, just not playing around.
And that is all just a single facet of the character that is Rudy. There's his relationships with his parents, both Japanese and Greyrat. There's how he interacts with the world, and is naive to common sense even after almost two decades of life, simply because he's never run into such a "common sense" situation before. Polygamy is met with shrugs by most of the world, with only those of the Milis faith considering it to be horrible.
There's just so much to love in the world MT builds that disliking it because you can't compartmentalize its story as "it's a redemption" just feels... I dunno. In bad faith, or immature.
This is a better read of the show than I think most of its fans give. I think this also shows a "problem" the video maker has in engaging with media.
A point was made in the video is that media should treat evil with seriousness proportionate to the evil. If you do not hold that opinion, then your experience with media is going to be different. Especially if you add in the extra effort of listening for dog whistles.
I do neither of those things most of the time, but the fans of MS may have that issue because some of them cannot grapple with Rudy being a pedo (mostly in the beginning, i hear he grows out of it which also seems to be the point.) My issue is that despite solid writing And characterization it falls into the trap of making rudy inconsistent.
@@SuperiorPosterior I'm currently watching MT and I think it's fair to say that Rudy does show character growth throughout the story. He's far from perfect as a person, but he recognizes the need to change and grow. He knows that he was responsible for most of his own suffering in his prior life and he learns from that.
@@SuperiorPosterior MT is also about Rudeus excusing a groomer that pedo his own child
Frieren herself has similar traits to the demons. She toys with them, deceives them... But it looks like these traits were taught to her by Flamme.
And as she could be full of hatred to them she is pretty calm when dealing with them. She does not look like she is enjoying it though, it looks like work to her, something that needs to be done. She does get the satisfaction of work well done at the end though..
This is exactly what a demon later told Frieren. Telling if her could kill another human-looking creature in cold blood then maybe she isn't much different than them.
It is taught to her. Base on Flamme's explanation. Elves aren't the type to run away from conflict, even if it's a tactical retreat.They face their problems,head on, even if it means their deaths.
And demons took advantage of this.
On top of the Demon attacks- as they see them as their biggest threat, AND Elves rarely reproducing,(because they saw it as pointless due to their long lifespan) the elf race is now nearly extinct.
Even NOW they don't seem to prioritize repopulation. Base on the three elves we have met so far.
It goes beyond her reaction to demons, though. Anytime humans want to do something dumb, she pretty much lets them. She might briefly say, "This is dumb", but if they're like "We want to try this", she steps aside and lets it play out. Like a demon, she doesn't seem to hold much value to their lives. This is probably in part because humans aren't friends. They're strangers, except those few acquaintances she took a brief 10 year journey with.
@@Axterix13not to mention a lot of them are actually trying to kill her now
Lol what a copout @@vietdinh3685
And there is a whole arc that will likely be shown in season 2 that explores this beautifully
I actually had the opposite thought. The "the demon is actually good/misunderstood/whatever" trope has become so common and overused these days that seeing show treat demons as genuinely unreedemably evil felt refreshing and novel. We are so obsessed with subverting expectations that we can often lose why a original exists in the first place. Me realizing that "the original form of a trope is OK actually" is a lesson I've been learning for a while now and this is a great example of it. There's also a big trend of writers trying to one up themselves in how "dark and gritty and subversive" they can make their work, which is something else I've started to not take immediately anymore, which is also around the time Frieren and dungeon meshi came out, which I would normally not care for due to being fed up with the state of fantasy, but I gave them chance because they picked my interest and I that was a great idea cause they both "go back to the basics" while simultaneously exploring an aspect of the world that is seen as secondary. They didn't "subvert expectations" because the demon king is the good guy or whatever they took your typical normal fantasy world and looked at it from a different lenz. And that has felt way more genuine to me than trying to be "subversive".
Since you also mentioned mushoku at the end I want to quickly talk about that too because the reason I enjoy it is actually kinda similar but from the other end. Basically if you didn't know, if we go by light novel releases, mushoku is the first of the "modern isekai" style that's become too familiar now. But it got made into an anime way way later. The result of this makes it a very intriguing watch to me because throughout the story we essentially witness the birth of the modern isekai tropes, but instead of just being tropes that you put in because they are the trope and bend the story around their inclusion like later isekai, in mushoku the story itself naturally leads to scenarios put the characters in the situations that eventually became the isekai tropes. This additional layer of knowing that they aren't because they're the tropes but literally the origin point of them makes it really fascinating to me.
Yeah, I'm with you. When the Demons first tried to play nice I was expecting a plot to be revealed where "Maybe Frieren was the badguy all along! Demons were only mean because early Elves were oppressors!"
Tbf, it's still subversion. The show implies demons evolved from mimics, aka they pretend to be something/someone they're not to lure in prey. They don't kill humans out of any desire for good or evil, but because it's just in their nature to do so.
I also really like what Frieren does because it manages to, at least for me, get me to doubt the heros. For a second early on, I was debating whether or not mayyyyybe the demons werent entirely evil, but then the penny kinda dropped after they attack Frieren in the jail cell that na, they're just evil, which i like. its different
@platinumm4730 a lesser show could have tried that all and failed
In case you forgot, the demon king order that the elves be exterminated. It's nice to think that the demons might not be evil, but it's pretty clear that they are if you take in all of the information the show is giving us.
in frieren humanity includes elves and dwarfs
@@Jonas-jx3kw Nonetheless, it is DIRECTLY stated that the demon king ordered the elves be exterminated.
Your analysis of the demons is somewhat off. While i agree that it's mostly "person vs nature", there is still a way to judge the demons individually by their intentions. If i included the demons from the manga it would take too long, also spoilers, so i will only talk about the 6 demons that we see in the anime:
1. Qual - Qual is a monster. He looks like one, he act like one, he dies like one, his appearance makes this easy to understand so he's not given much of a thought afterwards. There's no simps on twitter posting pictures of Qual saying they can fix him. What's important is that other than appearance, all other demons are the same kind of being as him, in fact their appearance is part of deception, they look like humans to invoke empathy from humans. That is the only reason for their humanoid appearance. There's no question about Quals morality either. He developed what is essentially avada kadavra. Magic for the purpose of killing. He did this because he likes killing. In fact, i would argue you can judge a demons morality by the magic that they use.
2. Child demon - first off, what exactly makes a demon a child? Linie looks like an early teenager at best, but is at least 40, probably much more. The fact that demons have no concept of father or mother implies that they don't actually reproduce sexually. This might be my headcannon, but it seems what separates animals from monsters is that monsters aren't born from a mother but instead spawn by some law of magic. And demons are just monsters that look human and can talk. So it's possible that the child demons is a recent spawn, and so very lacking in experience, in fact we don't even see her use any magic, meaning she probably hasn't existed long enough to develop any. She's also the only demon I can definitively say is not evil, because her actions, while following a very flawed logic and lack of the understanding of humans, were done in self preservation. But it does speak volumes that the one demon that is not explicitly evil still ends up being the cause of death and grief to everyone around them.
3. Aura the Guilliotine - now we get to the good part. Aura is hands down the reason this debate happened in the first place, people arguing that Frieren should have spared her, because she basically had made her a slave and so Aura was now harmless. So let me say this - Aura is 100% unquestionably, undeniably EVIL. She is someone who has a lot of mana compared to most demons, and that basically makes her nobility among them. She is actively proud of this, in fact, it makes up her entire personality. You can see this by the fact that her magic is "let's see who has the bigger dick, if it's me, you become my slave and im 100% sure this will never backfire because i would have never created such magic otherwise." Her army is made up of men she subjugated with her magic and then decapitated so that they could never resist. She didn't do this because she starving, she did it because she enjoys it. And her being forced to cut off her own head after being humbled is the most fitting end for her.
4. Lugner, Linie and Draht - from what little we know about demon culture, demons with less mana have to obey demons with more mana, so these 3 are auras emissaries. This makes judging them somewhat harder because their actions don't seem to come from malice. However, they clearly take pleasure in killing, especially Draht, and the only reason Lugner seems to have an issue with it is because it jeopardizes their long term deception. All in all, they don't seem to be reluctant participants who are forced to follow orders. They are as committed to destroying the city and eating its people as Aura is. In the end i would judge them as evil because they do seem to kill people for pleasure, not just food.
Also, why would anyone want a character who is supposed to remain sympathetic to keep a slave? It's one thing to play the Uno Reverse Card on the evil artifact in the moment to kill the badguy, but continuing to use the evil artifact after that is not good person behavior.
You are very wrong on Qual dude. He is not just "some monster", he was one of the most respected Demons in existence and was basically a "Hero" for Demonkind for creating a spell that is capable for the mass murder of humans (their mortal enemies that killed lots of Demons), also Macht was saddened that he died, because Qual was his mentor and teacher. That is the genius of Frieren, even characters like Qual that fist seem forgettable monster of the week characters, are actually quite deep and nuanced characters.
@zigazdovc6175 i'm not saying he wasn't respected by other demons, i'm saying that he gets no simpatjy from the audience and that because of his appearance, no one debated if he is evil or not.
What the demons are and how they think is a major subject in the manga in later chapters. In effect demons are a species that cannot feel any sort of empathy to anyone or anything. Not even others of their kind. The best comparison that can be made is that they are intelligent sharks (the series actually makes this comparison). sm
Killer Whales would be more accurate. Sharks are relatively harmless outside of eating, but killer whales regularly kill for fun.
@@PettyCrow-n9cYou haven't read the manga. Your comment is literally wrong. That literal distinction is depicted in the manga.
Another thing is if you want to nitpick it the in-manga comparison etc etc. But do you really want to argue against the characters in the manga against the author's choices? Isn't it silly?
7:47 The judgement of Humbert is only part of what is going on in Lolita. The other part of it is Nabokov playing with the reader's habit of sympathizing with protagonists and trusting narrators. We *know* what Humbert is, but as we read his self-justification and self-deception, we tend to *forget*--and then when Humbert's mask slips again, we are disgusted not only with him but with *ourselves*.
Something I noticed when watching Frieren is how the way they use language is strikingly similar to how certain things use it in real life. I say "things" because they aren't people, but rather "AI", or more accurately Language Models. Modern text-based generative AIs like Chat-GPT often get criticized for giving false information, "hallucinating", or "lying", but the truth is that they don't actually understand what they're saying any more than the demons in Frieren do. They simply say the words that they believe they're expected to say, because that's the behavior that was rewarded during training. It's a different sort of self-preservation, but could still in a sense be boiled to a similar idea.
It's hard to see the demons as acting strictly to preserve or reproduce when we have characters like Lugner and Aura that clearly derive some satisfaction from inflicting pain. Lugner wanted to get revenge for a surprise attack. Nature is never so reactive and malicious.
Did you ever saw a cat ? Real question
You do no know about, Orcas, Dolphines, Otters... those fuckers be evil af
Ravens destroy your entire argument a flock of Ravens can and will hold a grudge against an individual human
@@animeproblem1070 Octopus, too, have been known to hold grudges against certain keepers at aquariums and spray them or act up around them specifically.
Mate humans are animals and other animals hurt stuff for fun too like dolphins and other stuff not sure how you didn’t know this common sense but whatever
i never listen to podcasts but i'd listen to your voice for hours and even sleep to it, it's soothing as you talk about something i really like
I think you make a good argument, but I also think there are some scenes that undercut what you're saying. If you look at Lugner versus Fern, you see that while the outcomes of the two ambushes are similar, Fern was trying to kill Lugner and missed while Lugner had the same opportunity and, if I'm remembering the scene correctly, intentionally went for the option that caused Fern more pain. That, I would argue, is not the behavior of a predator trying to take out a threat. That is the behavior of someone who is being cruel because he wants to. That is what I think most people would argue is an evil act.
It's not the only one, either. In some its more subtle, but still there. This one just happens to be the most blatant example that I remember. I'll agree that the demons are excellently done in Frieren, but I don't think they represent nature in the same way you are talking about. Then again, I do believe that there is such a thing as an objective evil and an objective good, and from that viewpoint you can say that a good person opposing great evil is a person versus nature story. The nature in question just happens to be human nature.
Just my two cents while I should really be asleep. 😛
Do demons really have to be benign and NOT evil to represent nature? It could just be in their nature to be sadistic. Evil also lies in nature, you know.
I disagree. For one, humankind always has some people who choose the path of more pain but it would be stupid to call all of humankind evil when it’s only a minority. Secondly, animals and plants, despite being seen as natural and neutral, have very sadistic ways of surviving.
A venus fly trap for example does not need to evolve methods of melt the body of an insect to feed off the liquid version of its body but it does. A orca does not need to slap a manta ray ten feet into the air to kill it but it tenderizes the meat. Despite the instincts driving most animals, most animals still know what “fun” is and how to partake in it and every action we mostly judge them on is based on anthropomorphism on their behavior since we use relative judgement to judge what we consider “right” or “wrong” when it’s all neutral.
Is a Kangaroo evil for leaving their child to die? For us, yes, because humans view life as generally precious. For the Kangaroo, it means living another year and just making another baby to replace them. Is an any colony evil for enslaving other ants they’ve raided? There’s a lot of scenarios when put into human morally seemed messed up but is the natural order for these animals.
Cats, that's the only thing you really gotta say to dispute this, cats toy with their prey, pretty consistently. Stimulation is also a need for species with brains
@@tomykong2915 If I recall correctly, the reason cats, at least housecats "play" with their prey has more to do with disabling it and preventing it from harming the cat than anything like malice or a need to play. Granted, intelligent animals often do engage in play, but that's not what's happening with cats whenever they bat around a mouse from what I understand.
@@seraphywang4638 Actually, Venus fly traps and other carnivorous plants pretty much had to do just that in order to survive in their native environments. The insects provide nutrients that the plants need. They're plants, so they don't produce the energy needed to use quicker forms of killing the insects. Basically, trapping and digesting the insect while it's alive really is the only way for carnivorous plants to do that because they're reliant on what the structures and mechanisms that evolved in plants, and that doesn't include fast acting muscles.
As for orcas, it still kills the manta ray quickly, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were other reasons for them to do it that way, like avoiding injury like you see with cats.
Ants are not that intelligent, and as far as I'm aware there's really only one species of ant that would do something like this, and it only works because the colonies outside of South America, which is where those ants come from, haven't really diverged from each other enough for them to see those colonies as different colonies. If I remember right, that same species of ants does fight itself in its native habitat because the colonies are different enough for them to see each other as threats.
But as for as ants in general go? What we're seeing with them is a lot like what we see in video games or with AI. There's a set of relatively simple behaviors and instincts (or routines and conditions in the case of the computer stuff) that results in emergent behaviors that appear to be intelligent at first glance. It's not, but to most people it appears that way.
I can't really argue with you about applying human values and ethics to the actions of other animals, but then again, I'm not trying to. I am arguing that the demons are not as gray or neutral as Pey says they are.
While the mindset of demons does have some very alien elements to it, I'd argue that they are still very much human in some significant ways, and not just because of their appearance.
One of the comments mentions that evil occurs in nature, and I think the issue with that is that, by and large, most animal's brains do not work like ours. For demons, it's clear that they don't either, not exactly, but I'll get back to that in a moment. The question I have is what makes someone sadistic? You have to derive pleasure from the pain and humiliation that you cause. It's right there in the definition. So now we have to ask what is the intent? Why does an animal do something? As far as I'm aware, humans are really the only things that have the capacity to be sadistic, to know that we are causing pain and take pleasure from that. Even our closest cousins, the other great apes, don't show behaviors like that, again as far as I'm aware.
So what does that mean for demons? I've already mentioned Lugner and how he started his fight with Fern, but Lugner's hardly the only demon to show something that I would call sadism. Aura shows a smug satisfaction when she thinks she has Frieren beaten, and instead of trying to kill her quickly, she draws it out. I doubt it would have mattered in the end, but it does show what I would call a desire to relish in her superiority over Frieren. We see something similar with Draht when he tries to take Frieren's head and again with Linie where she draws the fight out with Stark.
And I think that it's significant that the four demons with the most screentime so far do show those tendencies towards sadism. Most of Qual's screentime was spent on the fight against Frieren and Fern. There wasn't a lot of time for characterization in that, and to be honest, he really didn't stick in my mind that well. It's the same for the demons we see when Frieren remembers how she met Flamme and became her apprentice. They just weren't around long enough to do more than spout off about how the Demon King has decreed the elves need to be slaughtered (and the biggest question here is why,) and establish that demons tend to be arrogant when they think they have the upper hand.
The demon girl in the flashback when Frieren is explaining demon nature to Fern and Stark is really the one demon we see that has a good amount of screentime that we don't see behaving in a way that suggests she enjoys the pain she has caused. To me, it stands out because of that. This and the scene with Lugner and Linie when she asks what a father is do an excellent job of showing that there are things that are completely alien to how demons think.
Don't get me wrong. I think the demons in Frieren are interesting and well written. I'm also not so arrogant as to say that I could very well be wrong. I am willing to admit that I don't know everything either. That said, I don't think the demons in Frieren are as gray as everyone wants to believe.
And if it turns out that cats and orcas really are sadists, well, it'd hardly be the first time I was wrong about something.
Little do you all know Pey Talks Anime is just another demon luring you into false senses of security.
3:58 ok but this is amazing from a psychological perspective - essentially it's how psychopaths learn to mimic empathy, responses are picked based on their perceived benefit
"They don't make the demons evil"
MY GUY
DID WE WATCH THE SAME SHOW?
I really like how they run demons in Frieren. So often we see sympathetic demons or demons that can be negotiated with, such as in YuYu Hakusho, Naruto, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, or to some extent Black Butler. This ignores so much of the historical and religious context behind demons, they are unabashedly malevolent. On the other hand, I see them so often as murderous rampaging brutes, such as in Seven Deadly Sins or most Isekai. This again misses so much of the historical and religious context, Satan is noted as being a deceiver and the father of lies as well as the whole kill, steal, and destroy. Frieren gets that, demons are intelligent, scheming, and all too happy to talk about peace while bringing an army to humanity's doorstep.
I really like the presentation of demons in Frieren.
Author just went full Goblin Slayer on them.
Demons are often portrayed as a misunderstood victims of slandering.
But there?
They are just ridiculously inteligent *ANIMALS* , who's thirst for human blood gets in the way of self preservation.
Thats what makes them *MONSTERS* .
There is no difference between that one parrot repeating tortured screams from a movie, to be let out of its cage, and a demon spawn screaming for its "parents" when facing danger.
I *LOVE* this !
I once saw someone compare these demons to AI ChatBot's, and it struck me like lightning.
I could also mention "Chinese Room" experiment there.
They don't know the meaning of the words they say, but they know they will get a positive results for using them.
I aspire to be such writer one day !
TL ; DR :
- Demons are *cleary* shown to be nothing else than a super inteligent *animals* .
- *RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT IS DONE*
Its a breath of fresh air when the demons are treated like demons and not just humans with a funny hat on. Its becoming annoying that every other fantasy anime just slaps some horns on a human and calls it a demon. Let demons be demons!
i actually thought that op from level 2 had an interesting take on "humans with a funny hat" that should have been (and could have been if it was a more serious anime) explored further. the maisma. in this series they constantly emit an aura that humans and other humanoids cannot exist around, and the humans have holy magic which immediately kills demons. essentially demons are antimatter. it would be interesting to see an anime that takes this further. what would a society look like where two races cannot coexist, for the reason that they will literally destroy each other even if they leave each other alone?
I can't wait until they animate the golden land/El dorado arc with Macht... you're gonna love it. Great video as always i love your frieren series and overall your analyzations of animes
Your view on Demons is interesting though I do feel that you are missing a little something in your analysis. Demons do not NEED to feed on humans to sustain themselves, they like to because it demonstrates their superiority. They actively seek it out too. A bear in the woods does not target you, nor does a tiger in the jungle, even a shark in the ocean has no specific desire to kill and eat you just to prove they are the predator and you the prey. There is will in what the demons do. Aura does not need to destroy Graf Granat's town. There is no self preservation benefit (nor harm either from her perspective). She just needs to prove she is superior. Nature acts indiscriminately to eat or in self defense, demons do not. That is just my analysis however. I believe they fit more into the unknown category. A species other humanoids can't get on the same page with. Selfish and mostly solitary but still with a hierarchy and society and morals all their own. They are as much nature as an enemy faction of cannibals that finds leadership in the old axiom that might makes right.
Don't tell him, or we'll get a video claiming the demons are an allegory for minorities and Frieran is the grand wizard of the kool kids klub
arguably, the demons can represent nature *itself*. you can see the hero party as analogous to the advancement in technology, human knowledge and the collective wisdom of society, like in frieren being a thousand years old, representative of the culmination of knowledge, and the defeat of the demon lord being the ultimate triumph of society against nature.
Simply hubris. We think today that we've won against nature, and that is not going to end well for ourselves. It's already looking quite dire.
That's a nice analogy, @somehybrid why don't you back it up with a source?
Honestly speaking, fair enough -but, why then are the demons still all around?- I realised as soon as I typed that that if the same were analogous to today, then there'd be no nature around our lives, which obviously isn't true
They do not. Frierens world is very much still bound to natures will. Weather, other monsters, terrain, all of that still dictates human life.
The way demons from Frieren are absolute one of the most well written demons I ever seen, they aren't human in anyway other than language and aspect, they have absolute their own logic, they aren't evil they are just predators, human vs nature is a perfect way to describe it, a perfect example of that is Kiseiju, if we think about it the parasite from Kiseiju have a similar logic
I see demons in Frieren as a metaphor for psychopaths. Like psychopaths, demons lack of empathy and guilt, and use the language for the purpose of lying and manipulating humans. So to consider if demons are evil, we should ask ourselves if we consider psychopaths as evil.
I shared the same conclusion about the parallels to psychopathy (ASPD). For a long time, I was unsure how to feel about the demons, and felt the same way "early" Frieren did (during her first heroes journey): wary observation. Once we reached the climax of that flashback arc (and later, the climax of the demon war), some things clicked for me:
•These demons ARE psychopaths, but psychopaths are not demons, because
•IRL people with ASPD have various motives that don't hinge on preying on other people to meet their goals. (Not saying some don't or won't prey on humans as A main directive or stepping stone, just that it's not always the core of their drive for each one.)
•Those demons were inherently dangerous BECAUSE of their subsistence of preying on humans/humanoids, and Frieren clearly understands this (which is why she has no qualms about exterminating them all on sight). There is no bargaining, there is no alternative, there is no understanding possible to grow. The demons only see other creatures as food sources, and they are not the type to argue with their food without it resulting in their full belly in the end.
•Those demons are in fact, not evil, but very animalistic in their drive for sustenance and self-preservation, to the point that demons with casually sell out their own kin if the pros outweigh enough of the cons. It's not so much a choice as a business transaction.
•As a result, this gave me a fresh perspective on both the fantasy and the irl dynamics on how these types operate (simplified as it may be). I still don't know how I feel about them, but at least I have a clearer picture about what to expect.
I would say they are evil in the sense that coexistence is not an option, why they are considered monsters and not a people. It's not shown at least thus far that demons can co exist long enough to build a web of logic that makes up for a lack of empathy, as i assume most high functioning psychopaths acquire. Even animals have a mix of logic and empathy. It's highly unlikely that they could learn the language and not puzzle out meaning from it over thousands of years. They just don't because they dont need to: because their pursuit of unbridled power and crushing everything with it hasn't been shown to fail enough to matter.
I liken it to the "the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference" that people will often quote. That's obviously dumb: if you put the two on a straight line, they are clear opposites. What people actually see is an exaggerated U, with love and hate being roughly equidistant or close in terms of passion and reasoning, and indifference being the farthest thing from either. It's fitting that in a polarized world, such a saying has gained traction.
that would be to acknowledge demons as a human being though at Psychopathy is a disorder in demons, the idea that they are nature, an evolved wild animal that only mimics humans to get a meal or such fits better than saying they simply hold no empathy, you dont say lions are psychopaths for eatings a gazelle
i see a demon as an animal in frieren
they have hairacy system, they know how to live around human, and they neither bad or good for human.
but the way they fix a problem is very different with human
basically if human doesnt have "humanity" in them
**Makima intensifies**
I disagree with your premise that a story must accord with my morals to be worthwhile or enjoyable.
(how many stories are about a _true king reclaiming the throne,_ completely counter to my idea of a just society?)
I _do_ think that if a story is going to give me the icks, it needs to earn it somehow. Maybe by leveraging the ick, maybe by telling a story that wouldn't otherwise be possible, or maybe by being just too damn good to dismiss, even if it has something I don't like. Very much like how if a story does something to strain my suspension of disbelief, the story needs to be doing something that makes the stretch worth it (see eg mr btongue on magic and "why put a wizard in it?").
I'm a firm believer in no story (except that specifically for children), has any moral obligation to be "right".
If the the storytelling is gripping, what more do I need?
Agreed. We are adults. We don't need to be taught morality in fiction.
@@jaideepshekhar4621fiction enforced beliefs and inadvertently os a reflection of the values the author holds close to their heart.
There's so many microdifferences between American and Japanese media in terms of morality and beliefs. It inevitably leads to a culture clash.
There are levels to it. I hate watching or reading anything that makes emperor's the good, romantic guy. It goes so far against the actually reality and my morals compass that I don't like reading it.
@@upg5147well it depends on how the story itself presents such morals. I can easily watch or read something that has awful shit going on that goes against everything I believe. But if a story tries to justify those things within the narrative, then I no longer want to participate in it.
7:40 we also need to remember that Frieren give demons chances to redeem themselves over and over again but every time they refuse
what would happen if you gave a lion several chances to "redeem" themselves by choosing not to kill and eat prey? they'd probably "refuse" as well.
are humans irredeemable as long as they keep killing and eating other animals? even as these animals plead for their lives and suffering with all the communication skills they have?
@@gamongames precisely that, yeah. I was just coming to say that it was less that the demons *chose* not to be redeemed so much as they simply didn't understand what there was to redeem, or even the concept of redemption itself.
@@gamongamesdemon doesn't necessary need to eat human to survive. Human is just part of their natural prey, they can live well off without ever consume human. But eat human is part of their nature
@@HoaTruong-km9rkumans to stop eating animal, and live in other food sources
@@BBBS-ne5te what ?
I think as well, that a lot of whether demons could be considered 'Evil' in Frieren comes down to the difference between Amorality and Immorality.
I'd argue that the Demons are inherently Amoral - morality has no influence on their actions towards humans, just as a Wolf's actions towards deer is not influenced by morality. For both Demons and Wolves, it is their nature to prey upon them.
I don't usually comment but I didn't think that I'd find someone else thought the same with Mushoku Tensei
I was expecting a redemption story, a flawed character learning to better ones self (as the original name sorta implies, "I'll really try in another world")
But was left feeling disappointed in the end when that isn't the main focus. I'll still think it's good but I yearn for more of the redemption that was promised (I'll still stick it out)
Thank you Pey, for taking at nuanced look at the Demon topic, as divisive as it is.
I've watched this video series since the second one and I can't wait for the rest of the video series.
I am rooting for you!
While I am not a fan of Tensei either I know some stuff about the original web novel and let me say that Rudeus we have now or form the light novel version is an actual improvement. To tdlr it the web novel rudeus was creeping on his niece and let’s just say that it lead to his brother beating him to death. Light novel rudeus iirc had a different beginning.
@@2265Hello thanks for sharing!
I didn’t not know that
Let’s see the direction the anime adaption will take us
@@bleato2 yh but as for the current version and from my talk with fans of the series Rudeus will remain a sleaze just more contained. And he will improve and suffer the consequences of his actions but not in the way you would hope.
I was also pleasantly surprised to find someone who had the same view as I about mushoku tensei. I think many of us had came in with that view due to a certain popular anime TH-camr haha
Redemption generally isn't something that happens overnight or even in a single/couple anime arcs/seasons. MT is taking its time and doing it right which probably feels wrong to people who haven't ever seen it done properly before.
loving the frieren series. i also like mushoku tensei. i don't think the path to redemption is linear. i don't think rewarding the protag through the forgiveness of other characters undermines the story. i also don't think condemning every negative trait is interesting because applying modern society sensibilities to a fantasy setting is just a pretty backdrop to preach to the audience about how to feel. i enjoy mushoku tensei because the world building, interactions, and nature of the characters put us at odds with the cast sometimes. i don't think frieren covers any of the same ground in that regard so those feelings aren't mutually exclusive. they're both top tier in my book but for completely different reasons.
hmm, I think that's an interesting perspective. thanks for sharing
I agree with you entirely, though I also can see where Pey was lost by the story. In my circle of friends, there are 2 of us who love Mushoku Tensei (though I prefer the LNs to the anime) and 3 of us who couldn't stand Rudy enough that they dropped it. I am a fantasy fanatic, and at this point in my life I prefer complex world building and complex characters. I have Mushoku Tensei, Frieren, Re Zero, Reign of the Seven Spellblades and Ascendence of a Bookworm, not wth my manga and other LNs, but with my Western Fantasy Series (Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, Tolkein, Terry Brooks, Jim Butcher). This is because, within their scopes, their worldbuilding is more akin to the epic fantasy series I grew up on rather than the generic isekai/fantasy LNs I went through a phase of reading.
Rudeus's story is not a generic isekai protagonist becomes an angel. Its a more realistic story about what would happen if one of the lowest scum were given another chance. Redemption, improvement are possible, since they know what happened in previous life and would want to avoid/change it. But nowhere near guaranteed. So are relapses and contradictions. Just like real life. To expect the story to condemn him is like expecting fate to condemn evil doers irl. Not gonna happen. Stop viewing media through the lens of your personal morality or expectations.
@@logikx1325 did those 3 ever give the manga or LN a shot? at least the manga I find does a better job with the framing of the issues than the anime. Beyond that, just to avoid posting multiple replies without reason, I'll reply to OP here too:
jobless as a story does condemn the actions of Rudeus though, he himself does too, the world around him doesn't, and the story does a lot of what it's aiming to do by assuming you already understand that what he's doing is wrong, and then leveraging that understanding as it goes. It isn't a story about how these things are wrong, and it doesn't need to go out of its way to portray these things as wrong, it just needs to not portray these things as fine and lighthearted comedy, those aren't the same thing, and the anime often does portray rudeus's issues as a lot more lighthearted than they really are
I absolutely love every single video in this series you make, not only because it’s about a beautiful show, but because you help inspire me to write and give me ideas. For example, I’m tossing around the idea of a character who realizes they’ve been a part of a genocide, and have to grapple with that. Sort of like ender’s game or something.
i am so sorry man, i really like your channel, your style of speech and your insights about deeper meanings in anime BUT i can't watch your videos anymore because i HAVE TO FORGET as much frieren as i can so that in a few months i'll be enjoying it more when i rewatch the show. Keep up the great work
I rewatch Frieren every month (1 ep a day) and have the entire time since it ended. I still enjoy it every watch through, and still am noticing new subtle details and most of all, have really come to love the subtle references in the 2 ED MVs.
Lol, I watched Frieren 3x in a row, and enjoyed it more after each rewatch.
had me in the first half ngl
Have fun with the rewatch
It reminds me of Trigun's spider and butterfly. Demons are merely a spider, but both the spider and butterfly are animals that exist. Being a butterfly doesn't make spiders evil.
* Trigun is such a good show !
Yes and no.
Spider isn't evil, because he has no other choice than to obey by the laws of nature.
But demons?
For them it was a choice.
Nor spider, nor a wolf, can breed livestock and cultivate land.
But demons could do not only that, but they could just live with humans as a kin !
Wolves were our only rival in the foodchain, but instead of eradicating each other we enforced mutual traits of evolution to live with each other, under one roof even.
What helped such relationship are the social tendencies of our both species.
While demons are extreme solitary animals by nature.
Still, being a solitaryr, like a Polar Bears, doesn't prevent you from having a farm with animals and crops.
And after all, *so many* humans have *so many* screws loose that even absolute beasts like Polar Bears and even Chimps aren't safe from a snack and a pet on the head.
If not made to kill humans by design, it could be only a matter of time for humanity to "domesticate" demons, to an extent.
But demons are monsters, and monsters very nature is to kill humans, even if it goes against theyr very own self preservation and good interest.
Demons are to humans what a Woodchipper is to trees.
We physically *CAN'T* change how they were made to be.
The last part is important. People keep acting like framing isn't a thing. This is similar to my beef to redemption arcs where characters story doesn't act like what the person did was wrong in the first place. There are a lot of villains that felt like they were just sorry that their plans didn't work.
Great video! I've never seen any of the shows you talked about; but it was interesting hearing your analysis of them. Great to see nuanced opinions about media and your willingness to change your mind. Keep up the great work!
I think that was at the point of the whole deal with Himmel and the demon girl as well, to show that demons aren't an analogue for humans in any way, they are wholly different creatures. The demon girl couldn't fundamentally understand what it had done wrong no matter how hard she tried, because it's just thinking about hunting, and she probably saw the humans of the town like dolls at that point, if she got rid of another one then they could be happy cause everything would be back in the structure it thought was there.
I found that the lack of morality within the demons in this show IS what made them evil. they aren't evil because they want to be harmful, they act in reprehensible or what we consider evil ways because of their lack of understanding or concept thereof.
Your whole theory is based on the idea that demons kill to eat and survive therefore they are under the "VS nature" category. I disagree. Qual invaded the human lands and killed them for the sake of killing, using disintegrating magic which destroyed the body (food) anyway. Aura killed people to increase her army, not to eat them. Darht wanted to kill Frieren to gain the favor of the Graf Granat. Linie wanted to kill Stark because she was ordered. None of those actions came from a creature driven by its nature. Those are calculated, opportunistic actions to satisfy an artificial goal, way beyond what you could call natural instinct. They are evil monsters with their own evil desires beyond the need to eat
The demons don't need to infiltrate a city to bring down the entire barrier just to feed a handful of demons on the lives of thousands. if humans were essential it would be possible to snatch traders or pilgrims or perhaps a small village somewhere. And yeah "I killed your family and raised them as the dead so they can kill everyone else you love" is not the act of someone that simply has a minor case of the munchies.
I'm so fascinated by Demons treating language as a form of magic/combat. They do not fully understand it, but they've observed it long enough to know a word or an underline tone leads to a desire result. I have not seen much media respect communication analysis as scientific sub-genre. The demons are really fun because their inability to associate emotions with certain words results in a bigger sandbox to play in. Their dialogue is less focused on expressing themselves accurately and more focused on goal achievement.
The demons ABSOLUTELY act with malice, what are you talking about?
Lugner and Aura especially seen to revel in causing suffering
they dont just read the manga
Oh, that's not suffering. They can't even successfully interrogate 1 guy. When I play as a dark side Imperial agent in SWTOR, I make those 2 look like schoolyard pranksters, which they are.
Agreed, besides cruelty isn't malice, we see it in nature, say cats or dolphins.
they play with their food
Lügner enjoys killing as he stated himself but I don't see aura revel in suffering of humans. she just recicles the leftovers from her food as soldiers and not as a form of punishment but for pracmatical reasons.
many humans are the same and like to make animals suffer before they kill it while others want a quick death for their prey. animal cruelty is still a real concerning thing around the world. with demons being sapient, they propably differ in how they hunt as well.
This reminds me of the vampires in Shiki, and the show arguing that it was only a curse, if they didn't eat, they would die, and the fact that they were weaker than the humans (that, after finding out about the vampires, killed them in a matter of days), and only trying to protect themselves. Awesome video!
I also love when demons aren't evil.
It means the mana we can harvest from them by putting them into machine that torture them 24/7 isn't tainted by the negative plane, and can easily be refined into any kind of mana.
Think of the economagical possibilities !
The demons aren't evil.... You are
Bro what!?
LMAO! 😂
But the demons are evil, almost as evil as you
Found the Magi-capitalist
Yeah, this perfectly explains why Frieren does this concept so well.
I also like that demons in this anime just don't show any empathy. That's the main difference between them and humans (/elves/dwarves etc.) and I think this makes for really good antagonists. They also can't be redeemed, because they just don't have the ability to feel empathy for another creature, even other demons. That's just how they are in this world and the fact that the pure lack of empathy is antagonized is just an excelent choice for a story in my opinion.
I love Demons in frearen because there literally just animals just in the process of evolving, there current just a race of psychopath
All demons are evil incarnate, it's their nature. Except for Arueshalae, she is pure love.
i have been watching for a while but just subscribed, i honestly didn't think you would be able to get so mush good content out of such a relatively short series, but i have loved your content and will continue to look forward to what comes next.
Alot of seemingly shallow critiques of Lolita make alot more sense when you look at the author's other works and see that sexualising minors is a running theme
That was what I was going to say. If you heard of a good anime and then they mention there's a rape...oh but its poetic its really done well! That's what they say! Then you struggle and watch it. Then your friend says to watch that writer's other works. And they're all rape stories. Okay its a madman that can sometimes write good too.
The only malice I think we EVER see a demon display is the absolute disgust that one blood magic dude has for Fern.
He's genuinely upset to the point of insulting her for hiding her magic. He seems to look at that concept, magic suppression as worse than his death, the worst thing anyone could do.
He literally says she's a disgrace to all mages, and that Frieren is also. He almost couldn't conceive of anyone ever doing that, to him suppressing magic is worse than using magic to kill.
I have to disagree on the topic of demons being meer animals acting on survival. There definitely is an element of pride and even racial superiority complex guiding their actions.
Furthermore, while they often use worlds they don't don't understand to trick humans, they also do comunicate to express themselves. Qual shows genuin interest in the developement of magic during his absence. Aura put Frieren's restraint into question due to the fact that Himel is no longer there to scolled her. They even use worlds to comunicate with each others as seen with Lügner, Linie and Draht.
To finish my point, demons don't even need to eat humans to survive. While it is a common practice, they are omnivors and many of them don't engage in such diets. Some even had a genuin desire to live in peace, wich would be impossible if they requiered human meat to survive. They eat humans for the same reason humans eat cows: tradition and the plesure of the taste. In fact, we don't see a single demon eating a human during the first season, implying that their war on humanity is one of extermination raser that survival.
In essence, demons are not animals nor some mindeless force of nature. Rather, they are a race of psychopaths: beings born withought the ability to feel empathy. In human societies, psychopaths learn to act normally to conform to social norms. They do it based on observation and education. But demons are born alone, with no one to teach them how to act and nothing holding them back (a fact made even worse by the inerent sens of superiority they derive from their magical abilities). They see humans the way a kid would see ants: small and insignificant creatures that are fun to squash.
Well that was long. Thanks to anyone who've red so far. Feel free to express any opinion you might have on my analysis and have a great day.
you are very wrong you will see later
Saving to playlist, will watch after I've finished the series (finished episode 1 just before txting this.) I look forward to your work, funny magic man!
"What if demons didn't have to be evil?"
You're a few decades late to be asking that question. Anime has had a glut of nuanced or misunderstood demons for ages
First of all, I can't stress this enough when I say I've really been enjoying the "Exploring Frieren" series you put out, after finishing the first season of the anime I caught myself falling into the TH-cam loophole of people discussing the anime and manga and I found your takes in particular very reasonable and well explained.
With that being said I think the idea of Demon's not acting out of pure malice is extremely well fitting, it's somewhat similar to Übel as a character where you later on realize she can show compassion. I also strongly believe in the idea that demons are more described like somewhat sentient animals in the show, though there are signs that completely flip this idea on it's head. Especially when Frieren fought Aura where she displays her status (mana) to a human even though it shouldn't matter if they're practically looking for food. Sure these signs can be found in the animal kingdom where animals play with their prey. The difference here is that demons, actively compare themselves to human and their mana, like they're trying to be seen as somewhat equal or superior.
I may speculate a lot here but I believe this is all somewhat intentional, the idea that Demon's should have been at their lowest point after Frieren's first party slayed the demon king, yet they still fight and actively hunt, keeping themselves around is something I believe the story wants to explore later on. I believe there is this strong mismatch of balance where demon's are more than just animals, reason for that statement is: all demons are able to use magic and detect mana. Animals in the series aren't able to use mana at all, they can detect it but they don't have mana themselves or can't access it by whatever reason. Demon's on the other hand do have full access and even shaped magic in that regard. Monsters of demonic nature like the Spiegel or Einsam are capable while some other monsters can't. No idea why or where the line is drawn here but it seems extremely odd to me that Demons are THAT different to the other Monsters of the series. Considering the demon castle is close to where "Heaven" is makes me believe this ultimately will turn into the idea exploring gods and their purpose, religion itself holds a high value in the series but hasn't been deeply explored aside from the characters surrounding it like Heiter or Kraft. I like to think demons were part of that religion, created by a god in hopes to create an equilibrium between humans and demons which was and still is heavily unbalanced even after defeat of the demon king.
I think there are a couple issues at hand. What does it mean to be evil. And what are the risks of essentializing some nature to all demons? I think it is probably true that by nature demons are generally amoral in a human context. But I don't think it is right to essentialize demons as no evil but amoral. I think there's plenty to suggest that at least some would be considered evil in as much we colloquially understand evil. While most of us would reasonably not consider a bear that attacks people as evil, Frieren's demons have more capacity to understand and enjoy the harm they inflict. There are absolutely signs that some demons gain a remorseless satisfaction from their victory over their intelligent prey. If evil means anything at all, what more does it require?
I think it’s wild how people couldn’t understand that the demons are part of the “person vs nature” conflict. It’s literally spelled out right in front of you at every possible moment and it still somehow cannot be understood by people.
The demons aren't acting in only self preservation, they are 100% evil. They can take a liking the humans some of the time, but as the manga goes on we come to see they're not just animals.
So cats are also evil as they play with Thier food?
@@lulu111_the_cool A cat is too unintelligent to be evil. Cats can barely recognize their own reflection most times.
@@lulu111_the_coolCats can form close bonds with each other and other species. Demons can't.
@@8brahmanas8 Lizards can also not do that as that part of the brain they don't have. So lizard = demon?
lol
@@lulu111_the_cool No
SIRRRRRRRRR your analysis was outstanding deeper and better then I expected you caught me off guard much like the anime Frieren did. Outstanding.
No demon can be more evil than my ex.
I'm in the midst of a sketch of a demon who is self-actualized, or acting in her own (dis-)interest: and the cost of that.
This study resonated with what I am composing. My stories are told from everyone's perspective, in that there isn't a 'good guy' and a 'bad guy,' or nor that the protagonist's story is the only one, nor is the only story that matters in the story. My hero's journey isn't an arch: it's a continuum, or continuation. There isn't a beginning, middle, nor end, there's: "What am I going to do today?" "Who am I?" "What matters? ... and why?" I think an 'end' trivializes the journey and trivializes its own end. You're done with being good? Can that, being good, or even simply being, ever come to completion?
What does it mean to be a demon, that objectifies every human person, feeds off them, but then ... what? What is the point of existence? To exist?
"How, then, shall we live?"
I think this question has to be tackled head-on, and daily. Is existence a terrible thing? I think demons are very well-positioned to ask this question, and maybe to answer it.
I'm glad you took the demons' perspective, and asked the questions from them and what matters to them. Few look beyond demonizing others.
Ich und du.
for Jobless Reincarnation, the anime adaptation does muddy the issue. There are 3 conflicts in Jobless, person vs self and person vs society are the 2 that are relevant here though, his new society tries to convince him his old ways were right, with his growth over time being an active effort in spite of his circumstances. Jobless is about redemption and the active efforts for self improvement necessary for that redemption to be meaningful, but in the anime? It does make light of a lot of the moments where bad things are happening, a lot more than it does at least in the manga (haven't read the LN, or WN, but have heard things), moments the manga at least took the effort to frame in the serious light it needed to be presented in, without being overbearing and just telling you "obviously this is bad" it does a better job balancing the 2 conflicts, it acknowledges "in this world, this is the norm, and in this world, the consequences of these actions are relatively limited" but not presenting them all sing songy either, a big part of the premise originally was assuming the reader has basic empathy and morals and leveraging those feelings in order to convey the point, we all know watching a video of an underage child naked when you're supposed to be at your parents funeral is a horrid thing to do and not something a good person would do, it didn't need to go out of its way to tell you that, it used that existing understanding to get across just how messed up Rudeus is as a person.
The anime adaptation is visually stunning and incredibly good in that department, but in regards to how it handles the story, it takes a story that unavoidably needs a lot of care put into the writing, and muddies the point with an over-reliance on conveying things more light heartedly to make it more palatable, while in the process making it lose a lot of the existing appeal to the story. I would highly recommend reading one of the other versions of the story given what you've said about it here
This is what that guy was missing who made that video about Frieren's demons that is being picked apart by a bunch of TH-camrs right now. They aren't evil, but also not "redeemable." They have their own morality and they are simply unable to understand ours, and there is no way to reconcile humankind and demonkind. That video creator was unable to understand how these things can fit together.
I see a few jokes here and there about Frieren being racist, so hearing someone's reason as to why was interesting. Out of curiosity I decided to read the bible one day. I found it refreshing when I first got into Frieren because from my perspective, Frieren treats the religious source material with respect.
I've always felt uncomfortable with, "The Demon King is Discriminated Against" animes, because I don't know where the line is between creative choices, ignorance and religious appropriation. I'm no expert, but it seems like the biblically accurate demon is suppose to be similar to what Frieren's demons are like, but instead of killing and eating you after manipulating you, they convince you to waste your life doing sinful things and end up in hell with them.
I can understand why orcs, werewolves or kobolds are used as a source to represent discrimination, but demons, particularly in Frierens context, are not too different from zombies.
Completely non-religious myself, I just find history interesting, including the evolution of religion. So not an expert with probably a skewed view but from what I've observed;
Modern demons are often less based on the text of the Bible itself, but rather the perception of them through the church's doctrine over the past few centuries. Demons in the text represent the intrusive thoughts that drive people to do 'sinful acts', which can be defined as 'things the current society/leader/church thinks are wrong' - while in the doctrine they are explicitly 'evil manipulators out to get you', the former makes them innate hazards, a fact of life to push past, while the latter as personified evil. This shift is most obvious with the Lucifer -> Satan drift - in the original texts, Lucifer is the literal 'devil's advocate', a contrarian to god to make sure that all decisions face proper review so they never overstep or lead to unexpected harm, but post Christianity they became the embodiment of evil and not to be trusted. (The reason this shift happened is probably 'the church/state didn't want people questioning them all the time so they made the contrarian evil') - with the latter interpretation being the primary one today, demons are portrayed as 'intelligent beings that are evil', rather than 'a part of nature', which is only a half step away from 'intelligent beings that are *thought* to be evil'.
As a complete aside, the 'demons as an allegory for racism/xenophobia' are exactly that most of the time - a foreign power/people from a usually resource-sparse homeland invading abundant lands, which causes them to be villanized, one could say 'demonized', by the people of the abundant lands for no reason beyond the act of invasion. (Invasion in this context can be hostile (conquest) or non-hostile (mass migration, refugees, etc)). These are demons in only name since they are usually just humans with some quirks, or just straight-up humans with no quirks - what makes them 'demons' to the people of the abundant lands is their connection to their homeland and the invasion, not the people themselves. This mirrors plenty of IRL events, both recent and historical, but to avoid alerting *that* crowd I'll leave them unnamed here.
Anime demons have a lot more to do with Buddhist asura and comparable entities like oni, kishin, rakshasa, etc. 'Demon' is an extremely loose naming convention and is often a feature of English translation of words with a different connotation in the Japanese cultural context.
Furthermore, modern Japanese have a very strained relationship with religion, especially organized religion. It would better to think of their depictions of 'demons' as more comparable to Gnosticism than mainstream Christian literature.
@@NevisYsbryd tbf, organized religion has been rather antagonistic to most of the world for most of history, Japan just has had a lot of other elements of their society in response to their ways synergizing with it, which resulted in their views on it even more solidified as largely not good
@@tkgaming2385 and yeah, the history behind the abrahamic faiths is fascinating, so much of it boils down to a new church forming because someone wanted more power and saw growing distrust of the existing church, or the existing church changing their faith in order to maintain their power, but so much of the context surrounding those environmental factors that enabled that power play to work, or the impact those changes had is absolutely astonishing. and yeah, remember that god created **ALL** things in the christian faith, including "evil" but originally, who god even was was under debate, if you go far enough back, there's a greater god, and then a few lesser beings as the ones who directly created the world, and if you branch off to the demons, the overall views of the christian devils is a particularly interesting one, because Satan and Lucifer are 2 separate demons that exist simultaneously in a number of points along this timeline, alongside Beelzebub, and a few others, with most of these all being fallen angels, and if you look at other faiths, as the other reply before me mentioned, demons exist in so many faiths, and in most of them, they're usually a mixed bag, yokai are sometimes translated as demons, sometimes oni is translated as demon, and in Japan, demon doesn't necessarily mean it's evil by default, they usually specify that they mean an evil one, because they never assumed all of them were evil, more commonly, they view most as just a nuisance and no worse, with the evil ones being specific outliers, rather than the norm, the concept has a different connotation from place to place
and yeah, americans were often called evil demons by the japanese during the wars, in part because of propoganda, but in part, because as far as they were concerned, they weren't them, they were alien and they were dangerous, that sounds like a demon to me when it's described like that, and that's a lot more of the current mentality of what demons are as well, an alien creature who's evil, simple as that, and that's how people viewed people overseas when they never interacted much with the rest of the world
@@tomykong2915 Every formal group ever has had an antagonistic relationship with any other group with competing or conflicting interests. The history of organized religion is no worse than secular powers or mercantile businesses.
Japan, specifically, was subject to a counter-propaganda movement by the state as a reaction to the previous wave of state propaganda deifying the emperor in the form of state-sanctioned Shintoism and earlier conflicts including Buddhism. Modern atheist ideology is no different. Most other nations do not share Japan's level of hostility towards what is regarded as organized religion.
You brought up language and recognition, which reminded me that only a handful of creatures on earth have the ability to remember things outside of the time they occurred. Of course I can’t remember what this is called (it’s 8:23 am, so cut me some slack), but humans, ants, and ravens are 3 of the 4 who have this ability. Meaning a raven can fly over a meal, fly back to the rest of its flock, tell them where the meal is, and then take them there. Dogs, of course, can be trained to do something similar, but it’s not relying on its memory and use of language to communicate with other dogs, it’s using things like smell and rewards. Ravens will also bargain with each other, and they’ll remember who screwed them over in the flock last time, and will refuse to deal with that particular bird again. I found that to be incredibly fascinating, and since you reminded me of it I need to go look up the term. The 4th may be chimps, but don’t quote me on that. Anyway, I felt inspired to share for anyone who thought that was cool.
Ha!! Linguistic displacement is the term. I suppose we should add demons to the list…😊
This was very well written and helped me organize and better understand some of the thoughts and feelings that I already held prior to this. I'm going to post my extra thoughts after I talk about the video so feel free to not read the second paragraph if you don't want a tangent on the strange thoughts that the video helped me put into words. As far as the bit about Mushouku Tensei goes, I also feel like the show hasn't been as great in the second season because Rudeus is no longer the bad guy that you're rooting for to get better, he's no longer the one that we're expected to see fault in. He's now the one that we're expected to believe is showing others the fault in themselves. That "vs. Society" as you put it. I still think that there have been some moments of noticeable character growth, but they have been much fewer and farther between because it is less introspective now. And as far as the demons of Frieren go, that moment that Frieren says "aren't you?" immediately stuck with me when I first saw it because it told me exactly what I needed to know about the demons of that world from the person that best understood them; they are wild animals that eat people. Frieren does not speak in superfluous ways, doesn't throw around metaphors or think irrationally. She was aware of a clear and present danger that others did not understand.
To me, the demons in Frieren remind me of psychopaths. I've always found it odd that people will call psychopaths "not human" and follow that up with judging them as evil. I also think that they are not human but as a result, have always had a difficult time seeing them as evil. They are almost always dangerous, sure. But bears aren't evil. People just see psychopaths and say that they are not human to vilify them instead of understanding that they have had the things most people consider the foundations of being human stripped from them and, as a result, are actually a different animal. They are dangerous and should be treated as such, but they are not evil. They are just like the demons in Frieren. The human face and language only hold value to them as tools. Their two driving forces are similar; to find enjoyment for themselves at any cost (sometimes by metaphorically or even literally eating people) and to preserve themselves. They are scary, but so are tornadoes and tsunamis. Bears and sharks. They just look more like us.
Your choice to include footage of Heavenly Delusion in particular has me really curious about your thoughts on the ending of S1 though. Personally, I found it painfully unnecessary if not disrespectful. It felt like stepping in feces in an otherwise beautiful garden of foreshadowing and mystery.
Anyway, you got me thinking and I'm not sure where I stand myself on that, though I find myself trending in the same direction. Making demons more "nature" than "unknown" is indeed interesting, that said, I do think they still fit quite well in the unknown category. Where does nature end and unknown begin? I find that demons stand out compared to other elements that are referred to as "natural" in the Frieren universe. They're quite distinct from monsters, but also felt quite distinct from magical beasts. I think they're meant to stand as another civilization, just like dwarves, humans, and elves. If so, then the nuance is kind of expected. They're all just individuals, with the potential to be good or evil, but generally pushed in one direction by nature. Frieren herself sees them as animals, but she is biased and we're shown why.
I made an entire video talking about heavenly delusion a year ago!
th-cam.com/video/E8SXzP7TWEo/w-d-xo.html
also thanks for the comment!
Even though Frieren has made it EXPLICITLY clear MULTIPLE times, people STILL compare demons to humans. No, they are NOT comparable! 🤦🏾♂️
The demons in Frieren are great. They're like if a predatory insect gained human intelligence.
You would have open the gate for them.
I like how you ended this
That space of silence
To reflect
@PeyTalksAnime you're like Extra Credits
This video is a prime example of Overthinking. When you overthink about the term evil itself the whole picture gets convoluted as a result.
And if you don't think about it at all, you fall into depravity yourself. Perpetrating heinous things and yet believing yourself to be among the righteous.
@@DreamersOfReality Not thinking at all is stupid.
demons in freiren gives me psychopathy vibes
My personal take with the demons is that they are a lot like frieren. Yes they fight to sustain be the deamons also don’t know what to do with their infinite time a lot like frieren. They both don’t show emotion, both under estimate newer opponents, and critically don’t understand humans. I think these deamons are a reflection of what frieren would have been like without her party and her teacher.
Absolutely wrong on a fundamental level. Frieren is an elf whom has emotions, but isn't very great at displaying them even all the way back when she first met Flamme. Demons cannot and I mean physically cannot comprehend emotions other then self preservation. The Demons lack humanity which is absolutely opposite of elves as they seem to have humanity, but live just as long. Flamme might have kick started Frieren's more generous and helpful nature, but she had to have such emotions to begin with to nurture. I don't view Frieren and Demons as two sides of the same coin, but two different coins that are roughly the same size.
@@Al_Greg I think what op means how alien elves and demons are effectively aliens to humans, but frieren is different because she actually makes an effort to connect with mortals.
Frieren lived peacefully in the central reason for a millennia as civilization grew around her, while Aura appears to have spent the better part of her 500 trying to annihilate the city that grew up under the barrier Flamme planted there.
@@Al_Greg yeah, Frieren has always shown emotion, just in subdued ways (which is common for mages in this series regardless of their species due to it assisting in mana control, as seen when we see demons and elves who are not mages and much more openly emotional). Frieren is also quite happy with her near-infinite time, her regrets have to do with not valuing the time of others enough.
as a manga reader, I must say the fact that you had these thoughts with just the anime portion and the particular method you chose to prove your thesis on demons makes me realize how good and consistent the author is at writing the story's antagonist from the very start as well as planting crucial info for the audience to figure out how they aren't evil. one major arc in the manga will surely be a great treat for your interpretation.
the next part is just a personal explanation of your conclusion on how it adds to the story. if demons are not evil, then the war between humankind and demonkind isn't the war between good and evil. its nature is a war for survival, our protagonists aren't heroes of justice and yet their greatness doesn't fall off because they are remembered not for justice but mainly for helping people in need. this is the entire premise of Himmel's heroism, which inspired events that led to Frieren's current journey.
This is one of the coolest videos I've seen about Frieren, and I'm damn near close to watching all of them. You've brought new weight to lines that I really took for granted, highlighting "Well aren't you?" specifically. I know I'm going to come back to this video in a week and have something else to think about. I appreciate the way you highlighted Mushuko as well, it was frustrating seeing the show was loved by so many people, but everything seemed to eventually boil down to "The worst person you know is challenged by almost nothing and grows very little", and you really put to words so much of what I was struggling with trying to handle the dissonance between season 1 to season 2.
DAAAAAMN BOYYYY THATS SOME GOOD VIDEO
Calling them demons in all of these shows is mostly the result of a translation error (that goes both ways) that has evolved over the years. I say this as an anime fan. The cultural context matters, here. If you go back a century, before the cultural exchange between the US and Japan, you'd struggle to get anyone in the west to recognize what the Japanese call 'demons' in these shows as demons. They're really more like Fey spirits. Dangerous, sexy, mercurial, and often misunderstood.
Demons, fey, and spirits are fairly synonymous words. In Greek, the work for spirit is daimōn, and the term doesn’t presuppose the morality of the spirit. The word for a good demon/spirit is agathosdaimōn and a kakodaimōn is an evil spirit.
@@Brian-qt6su Right, but while western culture definitely traces roots to Greece, I think we have more in common with the modern Japanese than we do with ancient Greece.
@@Brian-qt6su yes, and just because words sound the same, they somehow hold the same meaning across different cultures? if we follow that logic, then the daemons in any show aren't bad, they simply are processes running in an unix system so there is no evil or good, they just follow a set of instructions! like what the fuck did you smoke to reach that conclusion?
@@Carakav So? Most cultures have a class of lesser divinities in their mythology/belief systems. Whether you call them daimons, fairys or spirits is irrelevant. It isn't a translation error. Demon, fey, or simply spirit would fit what they're trying to accomplish.
@@Brian-qt6su What are you responding to? I don't think anything you said actually engages any part of the point I was making.
2:35 that's actually one of those myth ones like lemmings running off cliffs. They only do that when starved but otherwise the same rules as any other insect applies: feed the mate or become the food.
Oops, clicked on this before watching the previous. Sorry to leave in first 30 sec, I’ll be back.
The child demon who “replaced” the child that she ate with the town leaders child. A gesture of remorse sort of but obviously extremely heinous.
You should have given examples for your argument about MT. Because it's hard to follow your argument when you talk about season 2 w/o showing any evidence. Which I know the topic is about sexuality so it's harder to show. But I remember season 2 (cour 1) being much less sexually hyper than season 1. So it felt weird hearing your take.
Demon in Demon Slayer: Just a disease mutated into something else
Demon in Mushoku ga Tensei: Just like human just more eccentric
Demon in Frieren: A force of nature and simply nature's creation
Demon in Berserk: 💀
Eldritch monsters that were once human, but given unholy power by the call of a malevolent deity.
Excellent video 👏
Saw a video from you, and wanted to see your opinion on demons, and you not calling them straight evil made me so happy Jesus.
Kinda feel bad for this guy expecting anything of Mushoku Tensei. For anyone familiar with web novels, it's always been one of the originators of the "isekai reincarnation wish fulfillment" genre
If you like demons as not evil beings I recommend reading "The one within the villainess". It talks about the demonization of a race that is, apart of being used to bad magic and dying more slowly to it, very close to humans.
Tf you talking about, they very clearly made the demons in frieren just evil as opposed to other media where they have redeeming qualities the demons in Frieren are probably one of the first times I’ve seen demons portrayed as just evil
wrong
@@Jonas-jx3kw cope
Completely wrong kindergarten interpretation for Demons in Frieren... Is your cat evil for killing, bisecting and maiming birds, even if she ate a large bowl of food just an hour ago? No it is not, because it is in the cats instincts to kill and deceive birds. Demons in Frieren are just wild beasts that can talk, they do not even has the capacity to feel or understand evil like any animal, hence they can not be evil. To be evil means that you also need to have the capacity to be good, which Demons do not have. Wild and dangerous beasts that need to be put down? Yes. But putting them down is not some grand act of moral victory, but an act of Darwinian self preservation, that is what this guy is telling you.
This may've convinced me to try the show. I've been feeling the fantasy genre REALLY dried out lately, but this looks promising.
So many people seem to be obsessed with humanizing the inhuman. It’s honestly ridiculous. Some things cannot and should not be humanized.
I wouldn't say the moral of the story in S2 were that his "bad actions" were rewarded. The message portrayed was Rudeus' relationship and judgement of his father that kept the two alienated from one another. Culminating in Rudeus' father sacrificing himself to save his son and Rudeus' realizing that he's not better of a man than his father. Which broke the disgust Rudeus had about his father's adultery. Even if it was post mortem.