In some respects, this was a return to the more wistful, slice-of-life style of Sousou no Frieren’s first several episodes. Flashbacks have a tendency to do that with this series, and this ep had a lot of them. In the end, though, it was a pretty dark piece of work with a pretty bleak commentary on the heroine. I know a lot of reader-viewers won’t see it that way, but to me this was the dark side of the coldness at the heart of Frieren’s personality.
Several major things became clear through these Flamme flashbacks. Most elementarily we know why Frieren has such a grudge against demons – they destroyed her entire village (which is a parallel with Fern of course). If indeed mana grows through age and training, I can see why demons wouldn’t want elves around – they live into the four figures and that’s just that we know of. For we all we know they could be immortal, but even at a thousand years they pose a great threat to demonkind.
We also now know that the great trick Flamme taught Frieren was how to mask her mana, something Flamme had been doing for so long that it was now second-nature to her. By implication Fern is doing it too, which means Lügner’s mistake was in misjudging the amount of mana she had. In effect this is like a cheat code for fighting demons, for whom the proud display of mana is the exclusive status measure in society. Not only can’t they hide their mana, they can’t even envision doing so. It’s a trump card to be played whenever a mage finds it necessary, and the counter to the demons’ silver-tongued ability to deceive humans.
The expiring Lügner calls this a disgrace to mages, and Fern doesn’t try to dispute it. Flamme didn’t either, and neither does Frieeren (do all mages start with “F”?). So is it “unfair”? Well, it doesn’t seem to me that humans (or elves) ever showed collective aggression towards demons, so I think you’d have to call it self-defense. You’d think by this point demonkind would be well aware of Sousou no Frieren’s secret weapon, but this is an area where their lack of broad social cooperation undercuts them.
Given all that, it’s almost possible to feel sorry for Aura there at the end. I mean, she’s being suckered by Frieren and we all know how it’s going to turn out – though the actual means by which the “battle” comes to an end shows Frieren at her most ruthless and terrifying. The young(er) Frieren from the Flammebacks said she wanted to eradicate all demons, and despite her going through the motions of giving them a chance to avoid a hopeless fight, that seems still to be Frieren’s outlook. She knows the weaknesses of demons, how arrogant and tunnel-visioned they are – her small talk with them before she destroys seems akin to a cat toying with its prey before ending it.
No two ways about it, this is a dark ride at times. Flamme was a cold-blooded killer, she passed it on to Frieiren, and she seems to have done the same to Fern. For all that she clearly forms emotional bonds with mortal creatures, Frieren is most definitely far from human – in many ways very alien by nature. It’s just a good thing for this story’s human race that she chose to be on their side most of the time.
MFF
November 12, 2023 at 1:25 amIts not the lack of cooperation for the reason why demonkind don’t know of her actual powers…
leongsh
November 12, 2023 at 5:19 pmSounds right. She does not let those who find out live. All those who find out, usually belatedly, are eradicated. Thus, dead and disintegrated demons into mana can’t tell any tales.
Collectr
November 12, 2023 at 6:01 amIt dark, but we’ll never understand (and may never know) the perspective of an intelligent individual that lives for more than a millennium. Frieren is the most OP character on the planet, but she’s not interested in the trappings or uses of power, other than purging demons, and she’s reluctant to get involved with the whirlwind, short-lived lives of humans. Instead, she’d prefer to spend years studying the minutia of magic. But although she denies it, she needs the companionship and stimulation company provides. Her quest and her companions, like the journey so many decades before, bring her to life. And is with the previous quest, it’s the journey, not the end goal, that matters.
Nicc
November 12, 2023 at 9:19 amAlright, we get the big showdown between Aura and Frieren. Aura uses her special ability and it’s time to measure the scales. Before we see the results, we get to see a series of flashbacks leading towards that point.
Linie is already dead as we saw her turn into dust at last episode. Lügner survived the attack from Fern but is mortally wounded and cannot regenerate. That’s when we learn that Fern has been suppressing her mana, something she learned from Frieren. For demons, that’s considered as a cheat. It’s not something that he has be concerned about anymore as Fern delivers the coup de grâce.
We see how Frieren became Flamme’s apprentice. Flamme found her while walking around an elven village that was destroyed by demons. Frieren was the sole survivor and was already powerful enough at that time to defeat a general. It seems that she was badly wounded in that battle before Flamme found her. It seems that they both have something in common; the desire to wipe out demons. So, Flamme takes her in for some training. We also get to see a demonstration of Flamme’s power as she notices that they have demon pursuers. Those demons want Frieren, but Flamme is not about to give up a promising student. She then nukes them with a wave of her hand.
There are two things at work. One, she’s absurdly powerful. The second is that she suppresses her mana to make herself look weak against demons. This gets them to drop their guard when they sense that their opponent has low mana. To demons, mana seems to be treated like currency and they have to flash that cash. The notion to hide it is inconceivable, like dressing up in dirty rags on purpose. Right, it’s their way to deceive demons and just like how demons deceive humans with their words. It’s interesting that Flamme decided to live the normal lifespan of a human and maybe we’ll get more of that in a future flashback. After Flamme’s death, Frieren just seems to go on with life as usual until she meets and decides to go with the hero’s party.
Back in the present, it seems that the scales are tipping in Aura’s favor. Indeed, this is part where Frieren seems to be playing with her food. Frieren’s mana suppression has tricked Aura and Frieren decides to show off the mana of a mage that has been practicing a thousand years. Well, the scale breaks and I’m reminded of “You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you absolutely have been found wanting.” from “A Knight’s Tale”. Frieren that tells Aura that mobbing her with her army would have worked better. With Aura fully under Frieren’s control, there’s no need for her hands to get any dirtier and she orders Aura to kill herself. Indeed, that’s the darker side of Frieren and she’s passing along the demon-elimination mindset to Fern. I’m not sure if she intends to get Stark to be the same way, though he doesn’t appear to have the necessary ruthlessness against demons for that.
Vance
November 12, 2023 at 6:04 pmOne thing that stood out to me is that Heiter said that a mana-suppressed Frieren had 1/5 of his total mana, and given that she was suppressing her mana to 1/10 of its total volume as directed by Flamme, her master, that means Heiter possessed half of Frieren’s total mana capacity as a mere human. It’s no wonder that Himmel’s party was able to defeat the Demon King if at least 2 of its members were that powerful. Himmel as the leader of the party and Eisen were probably no slouches themselves.
Smudgeous
November 12, 2023 at 7:03 pmThat’s assuming Frieren made absolutely no progress in hundreds of years in the actual amount of mana she suppressed. Based upon the glimpse of her removing the suppression vs Aura, it looked like she was at least tenfold better at suppressing her mana in the present, so I think it was more likely she had substantially more than Heiter when he speculated she had 1/5 of his mana.
Vance
November 13, 2023 at 2:04 pmHey, I’m just going by Flamme’s instruction to Frieren to suppress her mana to 1/10 of its total volume. Maybe Flamme told Frieren to suppress more of her mana after the initial beginning of her training, but unless that is ever brought up in the anime, I’m not going to assume that is fact like you are doing. What we do know is that Lugner considered Frieren a threat even with her mana suppressed and Heiter speculated her mana volume is 1/5 of his which he stated is not bad, which shows that Frieren’s mana volume in its suppressed state is at a level which most people would still consider strong.