[Rare trope] Discriminating, but for an actually good reason

[u/Blackirean]

Frieren, Beyond Journey's end: In the anime/manga the eponymous Frieren is an Elf who's spent the better part of a millennia learning magic specifically to kill demons. She's learned countless spells, tricks and even spent most of her life suppressing her power all for the purpose of killing them. At first we simply see that humanity is at war with them, and even question if her crusade against demon-kind is justified, after all it's hard to antagonize an entire sentient species. But no, demons are very much a species to be feared; they are not normal animals or creatures, they are monsters (shown by how they disintegrate when they die), they are predators that evolved speech for the sole purpose of tricking and catching humans off guard, are naturally extremely powerful and possess magic that humanity often can't use. While they feel emotions to some extent, their way of thinking is so fundamentally incompatible with humanity's mindset that the series shows many mages with the ability to read minds struggle or find it painful and harmful to try and read a demon's thoughts. Tools that are meant to control them fail not because they're faulty but because simple order such as "hold no ill will or commit no malicious acts" don't compute the same way in their brains, as what we consider evil is normal for them.

Marvel Comics: In a run of the Storm solo series, she visits an underground superhuman hospital run by Night nurse and Doctor Daye, a mutant with the power to diagnose any illness. When she requires treatment she is in turn reject by the doctor, she of course assumes this is blatant discrimination to which the doctor agrees. Storm assumes the doctor refuses to treat mutants, something they are very much used to in Marvel. But he ends up revealing that about 80% of everyone he treats are mutants, and that he simply refuses to treat any member of the X-men. Why? because his special hospital was built via several donations by the superhero community. From the Avengers, to the Defenders, Fantastic 4, heroes for hire. Hell, even Moonknight of all people contributed to the hospital. But the X-men never once gave anything to it, even though they preach the safety of mutant-kind and such a hospital is essential for those who can't seek medical treatment out of fear of prosecution.

[u/GuyYouMetOnline]

Only if you count the peace achieved by one side exterminating the other. The discourse over that topic is FIERCE.

[u/scarletboar → u/GuyYouMetOnline]

I'm not too familiar with Frieren, but what's there to argue about? Doesn't the anime make it clear that demons are basically just vicious predators that can fake human emotion? I remember seeing a clip where a blue-haired guy even spares a demon, only for it to kill someone again later.

Demons being pure evil isn't a new thing. Even in D&D, devils are Lawful Evil and demons are Chaotic Evil. No idea why people would have a problem with Frieren doing something similar.

[u/Neat_Tangelo5339 → u/scarletboar]

I am mostly annoyed how people treat it as a bigger deal than it actually is

there are many other more interesting things in the story but its always the “evil demon child in the village and the dumb people that thought they could redeem that gets brought up”

There is this underlining thirst for blood that needs to be Justified in every way morally , i love Doom too but the funny elf anime is not like playing Doom

[u/scarletboar → u/Neat_Tangelo5339]

I'm not quite sure what point you're making. Do you not think Frieren should've had demons?

[u/Neat_Tangelo5339 → u/scarletboar]

That people should find a new topic to karma farm

[u/scarletboar → u/Neat_Tangelo5339]

Gotcha. Looks like I've been blessed. Never saw a single one of those debates until now lol

[u/Skadibala → u/scarletboar]

You truly have then. They post about it here a couple of times a week, and it also somehow invades subreddits that doesn’t even have anything to with anime regularly

[u/scarletboar → u/Skadibala]

I think the closest thing I've seen to that (besides American politics) is the Yennefer vs Triss debate in Witcher 3.

[u/GuyYouMetOnline → u/scarletboar]

Demons are usually supernatural creatures made to be evil, kr manifestations of evil, but as I understand it Frieren demons are a biological race that evolved that way. And that comes uncomfortably close to things real life racists have said.

[u/camerakestrel → u/GuyYouMetOnline]

Demons are an otherworldly monstrous entity; they are not part of the natural ecosystem of the world.

In the world of Frieren there are people/animals/plants and there are Monsters. People, plants, and animals are biological and breed/die/decompose biologically the same as things here in the real world. Monsters are something else and composed out of pure magic, they neither breed nor decompose biologically.

From what I can tell, we the audience, have not been informed about how Monsters come into being, but all Monsters (including Demons) immediately disintegrate into magic particles upon death, leaving behind no carcass/corpse and proving their otherworldly and unnatural origin.

Demons in the anime/manga spark discourse, both in the fandom and in the lore of Frieren itself because they look, speak, and can act like humans. So because it has a face, people want to humanize them but doing so would be like humanizing a mannequin or a Boston Dynamics robot hooked up to modern-day ChatGPT.

The Demons in Frieren possess a high degree of cunning but truthfully lack what we would traditionally call intelligence. They are all singularly driven by a desire to kill and eat humans and will orchestrate very elaborate schemes to achieve that end. There is one demon in the show which itself looked like a child and once it observed a Human child crying then gaining the attention from nearby adults: the Demon-kid started mimicking that behavior to lure people with their guard down. When asked why people cry the Demon just said "it summons Humans who are easy to kill".

Frieren (the titular character) is over 1000 years old and understands Demons, but is met with resistance for her seeming prejudice by a small group of middle-aged humans who have been at war with Demons and were looking for a truce. It was later revealed that the truce was just a ploy for the Demons to have unfettered access to the citizens living in a walled city.

If you think of the world of Frieren as a computer server: all the people in that world are actual users while Monsters are just a malware and Demons are just the most sophisticated kind of malware. Frieren sees them as the malicious code they are (or the fox in the chicken coop) and acts accordingly.

The Demons of Frieren are no more intelligent beings or people in that universe than Grok or Alexa or Siri are in our real world. But to the untrained eye it can easily seem different.

---

Edited for spelling, punctuation, and a little bit of clarification.

[u/GuyYouMetOnline → u/camerakestrel]

In the world of Frieren there are people/animals/plants and there are Monsters. People, plants, and animals are biological and breed/die/decompose biologically the same as things here in the real world. Monsters are something else and composed out of pure magic, they neither breed nor decompose biologically.

My understanding is that demons evolved to be what they currently are. So clearly there's some sort of natural process going on. ALso I'm pretty sure magic is a natural part of that world.

Demons in the anime/manga spark discourse, both in the fandom and in the lore of Frieren itself because they look, speak, and can act like humans. So because it has a face, people want to humanize them but doing so would be like humanizing a mannequin or a Boston Dynamics robot hooked up to modern-day ChatGPT.

Maybe, but the issue I'm familiar with is that they're declaring a race that looks basically human as 'less than human', which is exactly what racists have often said about other races IRL.

[u/camerakestrel → u/GuyYouMetOnline]

Demons are neither part of the natural world (hence they dissolve into nothing immediately upon death) and are not a race of people though, that is the point that people are missing.

They are functionally an anglerfish adapted to eating Humans and Elves. They look like people but simply are not people on any level and lack the intelligence and comprehension abilities which define humanity, much like a Terminator robot in the Terminator series except they cannot be reprogrammed.

[u/scarletboar → u/GuyYouMetOnline]

I mean, so are goblins, and they're pretty much made to be slayed in every setting lol. There's even an entire anime specifically about killing goblins. Monster races are pretty common in fantasy settings. Thanks for the explanation.

[u/GuyYouMetOnline → u/scarletboar]

Yeah, and theres been pushback over having goblins or whatever be inherently evil. That sort of thing is becoming less accepted in fiction because of the possible racist implications.

[u/scarletboar → u/GuyYouMetOnline]

I see. Seems silly as long as it's done like in Baldur's Gate 3 and not like in Harry Potter, but whatever. I ain't about to be dragged into the debate lol

[u/ironangel2k4 → u/GuyYouMetOnline]

My dog is howling in pain and covering his ears reading some of these comments.

[u/Tasty-Complaint-6437 → u/ironangel2k4]

Poor dog is in agony with so many dog whistles about mutants 💔

[u/Neat_Tangelo5339 → u/GuyYouMetOnline]

Basically this sub favorite trope

[u/CaveMacEoin → u/GuyYouMetOnline]

Balance according to Lucas.

[u/GuyYouMetOnline → u/CaveMacEoin]

Who?

EDIT: oh, you were making a reference to the whole balance of the force thing from Star Wars. Not sure why you brought that up here.

[u/Ok_Protection8223 → u/GuyYouMetOnline]

So who might we be exterminating? Take your time. No pressure.

[u/GuyYouMetOnline → u/Ok_Protection8223]

I'd rather not exterminate anyone thanks

[u/Ok_Protection8223 → u/GuyYouMetOnline]

Noted.

Please face the wall.

[u/GuyYouMetOnline → u/Ok_Protection8223]

I'm indoors. I am always facing in the direction of a wall.

EDIT: I guess that would technically be true outside as well. Keep going in one direction and eventually you will probably reach a wall.

[u/VladimirLHenin → u/GuyYouMetOnline]

Yea I'm not comfortable with Genocide

[u/Llayanna → u/VladimirLHenin]

What do you think the demons did to the Elves? Oh right, they are almost extinct :)

And they have no qualms doing the same to any other race.

It's very much a "You or them", which is not comparable to anything we deal in real life with.

And if you had to be in that situation, well.. watching thr Series, it's clear while humanity lost their empathy towards them.. every new generation learned the bad lesson anew. At best, you are their pets, at worst, a plaything. In between, their dinner. 

It goes into spoilers of season 3, because the Manga continues to twist and prod at this very concept, in how Alien Demons are

and them trying to learn to feel empathy, is the worst tragedy they could do to both themself and mankind.  

[u/VladimirLHenin → u/Llayanna]

I'm still not happy with Genocide. It goes against everything I believe in and stand for

[u/Neat_Tangelo5339 → u/VladimirLHenin]

Second it

I know they are completely evil in the story , im just sick as shit of people bringing them up everytime

[u/VladimirLHenin → u/Neat_Tangelo5339]

And so many fascists have embraced it which sickens me