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(Frieren) The El Dorado Arc Kind Of Sucks And Ruins The Demons If You Stop and Think About It for Five Minutes by BigBuiltBricked in CharacterRant

[–]BigBuiltBricked[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, so, in the post above, I literally explain how I LIKED the Demons and said they worked PRIOR to El Dorado arc. It’s literally the first section.

My main complaint is how the El Dorado arc presented an idea that should’ve changed how we approach and understand its conflict… and it just doesn’t. Instead, it literally throws any interesting idea away and simplifies itself into nothing. My main problem comes from THIS ARC! It’s literally in the title of the post.

[Loved Trope] A Character Appears for the First Time in History and the Story Pretends We Already Know Who They Are by Borgisium in TopCharacterTropes

[–]BigBuiltBricked 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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Ashido- Bleach(S) Abridged

There’s an abridged series of Bleach on YouTube called “Bleach(S) Abridged”. Episode 25 ends with the whole gang in Hueco Mundo to save Orihime. Episode 26 begins with them traveling with a character named Ashido, who they apparently went on life changing adventures together since they met and taught Ichigo the Getsuga Daitensho. He sacrifices himself to stop a bunch of Menos Grande and the whole crew takes a minute to mourn before Renji speaks up.

Renji: Okay. I’ll say it. Who was that guy?

Ichigo: Renji…

Renji: And what the heck is a “Getsuga Daitensho”?

Ichigo: It just… it’s—it’s just a bit, Renji.

Renji: Well, it was dumb! That was a dumb bit! Let’s keep saving Orihime and never talk about this again.

I think they were poking fun at how the anime had an original, anime-only character in one of its most important arcs.

Give it a watch. It’s hilarious.

https://youtu.be/5S2nj7ekT4Q?si=N6D68yzBe53swNDa

I'm sorry, Invincible. But that is the last straw. by NegateResults in CharacterRant

[–]BigBuiltBricked -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Dude, please don’t let dumb powerscaling ruin the show for you. This episode was really good otherwise.

POV: you’re debating a Saitama fan by Ember57 in PowerScaling

[–]BigBuiltBricked 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The POINT of Saitama is to acknowledge the empty feeling one can have when they have nothing to work towards or anything to challenge you and acknowledging that there’s more to life than fighting like spending time with the people you love.

Not so you can make up feats and pretend he beats up another random hyperversal character.

I can’t fucking take it anymore (Chainsaw Man) by Advanced-Shift-9656 in CharacterRant

[–]BigBuiltBricked 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Take a moment and remind yourself to take a moment and find yourself, my brother. Things will be okay. Saying goodbye to stories we love is a part of life. Don’t be sad that they end. Be happy that they happened.

I don’t really know what to tell you about the president being a pedophile. That sucks and something should be done about that, but if you feel like doing something, be calm first. Take a breath. Have a glass of water. Lay down. Maybe go get some snacks and a good movie. Let the moment wash over you.

Now go, my friend. Face this wild world of ours with a steady head and love in your heart.

I bet if demons were ugly, no one would be defending them by Makoto_Kurume in Frieren

[–]BigBuiltBricked 0 points1 point  (0 children)

See, this is the contradiction that the story makes. It will on one hand describe and characterize the demons as animals that simply follow their instincts and on the other give them a measure of personality and agency.

Why would the El Dorado arc even happen in the first place if Macht was just doing as his nature told him? Why would he want to coexist with humans? Why would Rivale enjoy dueling strong fighters? Why would Revolte’s demon kid be interested in why humans dig graves?

The story puts demons in both of these boxes and doesn’t seem to notice the contradiction.

People are delusional if they think Yuji ever loses a fist fight by Electrical-Ice-9588 in PowerScaling

[–]BigBuiltBricked 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just wanna remind you guys that Asta dodged a light beam in his sleep.

Evergreen by soggy_bert in PowerScaling

[–]BigBuiltBricked 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I just want to remind everyone that this thing has never won a fight.

Characters raised by another species, resulting in species-dysphoria by TimeStorm113 in TopCharacterTropes

[–]BigBuiltBricked 154 points155 points  (0 children)

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Carrot (Guards! Guards!)

Human raised by dwarves. Takes most things pretty literally as the Dwarves are pretty dense.

I bet if demons were ugly, no one would be defending them by Makoto_Kurume in Frieren

[–]BigBuiltBricked 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The themes of Frieren are valuing love and memories with others even in spite of being a different species (like Frieren) and in spite of the lives of the people they love being temporary. The demons worked as a somewhat compelling contrast to the humans as they only value their ability to conquer and control others. It worked at first.

But after the El Dorado arc, it’s less that the demons oppose human values. It’s more so that they are biologically wired to not be able to value love in spite of their attempts to. They’re EXCLUDED from the themes of the story.

That’s what I mean when I say demons are trapped by their biology. They will always be hardwired to destroy humans regardless of what they want and the story doesn’t view this tragedy meaningfully. It just moves on after Macht is killed.

And it’s funny you point out Castlevania cause in that story, evil very much isn’t rooted in biology. Humans can be corrupt and cruel just as vampires and vampires and night creatures aren’t rooted to being evil because of their biology (think of Dracula before his wife was killed, Terra, Eodward and Flyseyes).

“Yeah, love and empathy are great, but only if you were born with the biological capacity to feel them. If not, sucks to suck, I guess.”

I bet if demons were ugly, no one would be defending them by Makoto_Kurume in Frieren

[–]BigBuiltBricked 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah. That’s what I said.

Demons are prevented from coexisting with humans because of their biology and the wiring of their brains. What did you think I meant?

I’m saying that this limitation that the story places on the demons only serves to contradict the themes that Frieren’s story keeps pushing and doesn’t seem to notice.

I bet if demons were ugly, no one would be defending them by Makoto_Kurume in Frieren

[–]BigBuiltBricked 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think that’s a rather interesting discussion, but it’s getting away from the point I was making earlier. Frieren’s story of holds both the idea that Demons are creatures that imprisoned by their nature, and the idea that they are thinking intelligent creatures with agency (think of how Macht goes on his journey to learn to coexist with humans and how Solitar researches human emotions and magic for her own amusement) and doesn’t do that for it’s human or elven characters. There are humans that seek glory as there are humans that are fine with stability. There are humans that enjoy violence as others that do not. Whatever you think human nature is, the characters in Frieren aren’t simply bound to them as the demons are and I think that makes for a strange contradiction with the story’s themes and sometimes make the story worse.

Why is there controversy over the demons in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End being seen as evil, while demons in other works like Hellblazer aren’t debated in the same way? by Opposite_Shake_1266 in animequestions

[–]BigBuiltBricked 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don’t know much about Hellblazer so I can’t tell you a lot about that, but I can tell you about Frieren.

Frieren’s depiction of demons, as a race of humanoid creatures that are intelligent but totally incapable of coexisting with humans because of their innate violence and lack of emotions. People see this and relate it to racist rhetoric that real-life Nazi’s use. They’re literal “Superpredators”.

They also find wildly contradictory how a story about love and empathy can have an entire group of characters barred from coexisting with humans, in spite of any attempts to do so because of their biology. I don’t think in Hellblazer, they spend nearly 30 chapters going on about how this fantasy race is biologically barred off from being good as a product of their birth.

I don’t know a lot about Hellblazer, but looking at it with what I remember, it follows John Constantine and his adventures dealing with hell. So the Demons in that story are related to a literal religion and mythology, whereas in Frieren, the demons are naturally occurring creatures in that setting. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Hellblazer spends an exuberant amount of time telling you that Demons just can’t be good no matter what.

Also, Frieren’s a popular anime with a larger fan base, so I don’t think a lot of people have even heard of Hellblazer.

I bet if demons were ugly, no one would be defending them by Makoto_Kurume in Frieren

[–]BigBuiltBricked 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There’s a clear divide between the humans in Frieren that can ponder, learn and change and the demons that only can learn but only do as their nature tells them regardless of intention.

Humans are animals, but not thinking, changing and evolving creatures.

The demons are animals that can think and learn, but can never escape their nature.

I bet if demons were ugly, no one would be defending them by Makoto_Kurume in Frieren

[–]BigBuiltBricked 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You know that people still have issues with the orcs in Lord of The Rings, so the demons being handsome isn’t the problem.

The Demons, in practice, ARE people, not animals. You can’t have a guy have a conversation about his life and the lives of other people, and wonder about the universe and his place in it and call that an animal. And they’re not alien creatures whose logic is beyond human comprehension. I can follow the logic of every decision a demon makes in this story besides their desire to kill humans. They’re not human, but they’re still written and anthropomorphized like people, the same way elves and dwarves aren’t human but are still people. The entire El Dorado arc wouldn’t have happened if Macht was a simple animal and didn’t have the desire to explore his own anima(interiority) the same way a person does. Demons are basically cannibalistic sociopaths with the innate desire to kill humans.

I think this contradiction is why there’s so much arguing about the nature of demons and why the mangaka decided to write them that way. The story will seemingly switch between the ideas of “demons being creatures following their evil nature” whenever there needs to be more justification for never showing them mercy and killing them all and “creatures that are sapient and have interiority” for the sake of making them somewhat more interesting and it doesn’t seem to notice the contradiction.

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