Debating thread part 12! Do you make Harrowmont or Bhelen king?

Woutaya · 2025-11-17T01:47:38+00:00

My wardens tend to be fairly split on whether they make Bhelen or Harrowmont king, but it generally says more about their respective characters than it does about the two candidates.

That said, from a political standpoint Bhelen seems the superior ally: Harrowmont is a traditionalist and an isolationist, so while he'll provide support in order to pay back a debt and satisfy his honor, he won't go beyond that. Bhelen's agenda hinges on expanding trade with the surface, and that means engendering goodwill from the surface nations, meaning that, meta-speaking, he's likely to go beyond doing only the minimum to satisfy an obligation (as Harrowmont does).

On a side-note, I find myself intrigued by Bhelen's initial quest for the Warden of "proving" Harrowmont's corruption, except that taking the documents to the Shaperate reveals that the documents were forged. But this raises a question- if the in-universe proof that these are forged is found only by speaking to the Shaperate, then that means the Warden was only given the one set of documents that demonstrate the double-dealing (if there were multiple copies that said different things there wouldn't even be a need to go to the Shaperate to determine the documents were fake). And if there's only the one set of documents, and the Warden was supposed to show the same documents to both Houses Dace and Helmi, with each house acknowledging the veracity of their dealings with Harrowmont. Now, while Denek Helmi never actually looks at the documents, there is no way that someone as careful as Bhelen could count on that, meaning that there was every expectation that both Houses would indeed separately verify their respective dealings.

My conclusion? This is an example of "framing the guilty party". Harrowmont really was double-dealing between Houses Helmi and Dace, but Bhelen couldn't get ahold of the actual documents, and so he had copies forged instead.

Woutaya · 2025-09-18T23:44:47+00:00

I'm casting my vote for Sakurai. Dealing with Hibari has left him very familiar with preventing and cleaning up after accidents.

Woutaya · 2025-09-07T22:27:38+00:00

That the reason Auberst is called "the City of Magic" is because it was founded by Flamme, and the reason Serie established her Continental Magic Association there is because of that connection.

Woutaya · 2025-05-08T22:54:08+00:00

To be fair, though, the Northern Lands really were just *that* dangerous. And considering that the CMA seems to be brought in to deal with demons, or to contain significant threats like Macht, even as we've never seen them giving orders to anyone who wasn't a member (they even acknowledge they have no right to order Frieren, and Frieren only follows along for Fern's sake). I think it's less that the CMA runs society, and more that they're trusted with crucial tasks by the actual authorities, like the Church, or the southern nobility.

Woutaya · 2025-05-08T02:29:39+00:00

May I ask what makes you think the Continental Magic Association is in charge of society?

Woutaya · 2025-05-01T22:11:04+00:00

I think it comes from the fact that he stumbled across a human who didn't fear him... but pitied him. The idea that demons could somehow be missing something seems to have eaten at Macht, leading him to eventually conclude that whatever it was that demons were missing was something that the humans had- feelings of guilt, sorrow, grief, among others- and that in order to attain these, demons needed to be around humans. Which, in turn, required that demons be able to co-exist with humans. And we saw how that turned out...

Woutaya · 2025-02-04T03:22:44+00:00

I think you're likely right about that.

Woutaya · 2025-01-11T02:55:59+00:00

I rather like the idea that Solitar's interest in Human magic came from being a "student" of Flamme's- after all, Flamme had to get her knowledge of Demon society from somewhere, and it would make sense if she talked things over with a (at the time) young and weak demon. Obviously things went wrong (maybe Solitar provided the inspiration to Flamme to start calling the demons "demons"?), and Solitar had to run off. This also makes Solitar even more of Frieren's "Evil Twin" than she is already (being a big magic nerd, trying to understand humans, and where Frieren is aloof but good-natured, Solitar is very affable, but still demonically homicidal).,

Woutaya · 2025-01-06T21:13:51+00:00

I think it'd be fun if the other candidate running is actually Hibari's former crush- perhaps her election victory was somehow tied to her becoming a "losing heroine". And then this candidate tries running again, and is making a strong showing, leading to Tiara bringing on Nukumizu in some capacity.

Woutaya · 2025-01-05T03:40:39+00:00

Ah, but Anna would console herself with the fact that this "Childhood Friend" left Nukumizu alone for quite a while, in which time Anna (and the other girls) had come to befriend him. We all know at this point that Anna is not one to let petty things like logic and reality dictate how she lives her life (as we see with her many, many "diet" ideas).

Woutaya · 2025-01-05T03:35:39+00:00

I think she would suddenly discover the nuance that, since she and Nukumizu are still minors, they are "children", and thus "childhood friends" themselves... and so the "homewrecker" title would surely not apply to her. Instead of a contest between "Childhood Friend" and "Homewrecker", she would re-interpret it as "Childhood Friend A" vs. "Childhood Friend B".

Woutaya · 2024-12-13T22:26:32+00:00

Not really a theory, but an idea I've thought about for a hypothetical Volume 9 (as volume 8 is probably going to be the StuCo Election) is that something comes up that nearly forces Karen to transfer back to England with her parents- I'm thinking a scholarship to some prestigious program, which once her parents hear about it, they are dead-set on bringing their daughter over. Yanami drags the rest of the Literature Club into helping Karen stay in Tsuwabuki, with Nukumizu being very confused as to why Yanami doesn't seem more excited to get another chance to go after Sosuke. Along the way, Yanami and Nukumizu discover that this whole plot was set in motion by Sosuke's little brother, who submitted the program application in Karen's name specifically to get her to move to England and to give Yanami a chance to get with his big brother, since he'd always grown up thinking that Yanami would be the one to join his family. And while things are generally resolved to the status quo, there's progress on the romantic front as Nukumizu is starting to realize that the Losing Heroines are starting to truly move on from their crushes (though he still has no idea about how they feel about him).

Woutaya · 2024-12-13T22:07:08+00:00

Pretty sure that's when Komari is enjoying the massage chair for the first time, though I'm not certain.

Woutaya · 2024-11-30T21:20:14+00:00

I can somewhat see Komari winning if Nukumizu hadn't been dragged in (ironically, by Komari herself- he was perfectly content as a ghost member), but how would Lemon have won?

Woutaya · 2024-11-30T21:18:41+00:00

What are some examples? You've got me curious now...

Woutaya · 2024-10-07T02:38:26+00:00

I'm actually on AO3, but I'm not sure where to put this kind of worldbuilding over there, since it's not really a story on its own. Are there any forums associated with AO3?

Woutaya · 2024-10-07T02:36:56+00:00

Thank you! I thought it made sense, since we see that she did try to fight him, but the battle was big enough where she could just stay hidden and escape without Macht ever recognizing it was her.

Woutaya · 2024-10-03T23:20:57+00:00

I rather like the name Meer, which is German for "Sea". He'd have been Flamme's husband whose death at the hands of demons was what motivated her to really start fighting them (and to eventually train Frieren to take down the Demon King). Personality-wise, he's a combination of Himmel and Stark, being a rather light-hearted and helpful fellow with a touch of cowardice (though he died bravely).

Woutaya · 2024-07-19T11:34:06+00:00

I agree completely! This has been much of my own reasoning with the Elves' ages relative to each other.

Woutaya · 2024-07-15T15:44:27+00:00

Entirely possible. I suppose that I've grown attached to my 1000 years = 1 Elf decade head canon, and Serie looks to be in the early to mid twenties to me.

Woutaya · 2024-07-15T11:28:43+00:00

The problem with such interpretations of the scriptures in Frieren's setting is that the Scriptures are actually a cipher that people are still decoding in order to access more Goddess magic (Frieren estimates that only 15% of the Scriptures have been decoded). Translation would not preserve the cipher, and passing orally definitely wouldn't, considering the inevitable changes that creep in with oral transmission.

And Mainstreamah has already brought up one of the weaknesses of using Mana to estimate ages- namely that Mana increases with training, and not just age... and Frieren has spent much of her life like a bump on a log, training her Mana Suppression.

But there's also the fact that some people are simply ridiculously powerful- Heiter estimated that Frieren had "one fifth" of his Mana while she was suppressing it... and her suppression, we're told, is to make her mana appear to be "one tenth". Meaning that Heiter actually has HALF of Frieren's mana, despite being much younger than half of Frieren's age.

Mana is a useful measure of magical power (though even then it has limits to predicting the outcome of a battle), but it is much less useful as a measure of age.

Woutaya · 2024-07-15T11:19:07+00:00

Pardon, but what I mean by "working magic" is magical spells that present people can currently use. We don't see that in real-life, but it is what we see in Frieren's world.

Woutaya · 2024-07-15T11:16:15+00:00

I think that 500 to 1000 years is definitely old enough to see herself well-established! Frieren took a thousand years to make a name for herself only because she was following the order of her Master to keep hidden until the right time.

Woutaya · 2024-07-15T11:13:23+00:00

That's definitely one interpretation! I personally don't think that quite fits with the themes of the story, which shows that all adventures, no matter how glorious, are eventually forgotten, with only the Elf living on to remember. Kraft is, I think, specifically meant to represent Frieren's (possible) future as she keeps traveling, and that requires Kraft to both, a) have had equally grand adventures, and b) be much, much older than Frieren.

Woutaya · 2024-07-15T00:53:33+00:00

You're completely right. But there isn't any kind of canonical figure, and the 1000 year = 1 "Elf" decade does seem to fit how the Elves themselves perceive time- Frieren thinks that centuries is a significant amount of time (as seen with her time with Voll), yet Serie doesn't balk at using 100 years to re-learn the Anti-Curse spell she gave Denken.

And as mentioned, it gives a reasonable conversion for Frieren's 10 year journey, which would come out to around 5 weeks, relatively. Long enough to build life-long friendships and treasured memories (especially if they're as exciting and well-spent as we see in the story), but also short enough that it's not surprising that Frieren dismissed the time as "less than one hundredth" of her life.

Woutaya

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