The Critical Mass(es): Replying to comments on my Frieren response video

[@bulldowozer5858]

22:40 Nah, I don't agree with that. Lügner is the strongest deamon of the bunch and therefor in charge. That means he weilds absolute authority. And like you mentioned a parent scolding a child, Lügner was (imo) scolding Linie for not only messing around instead of finishing the "weak" human off, but also losing. So his shock may not only be because he was know outnumbered, but that someone under him would disregard a direct order. That he was losing control of the situation and about to pay the ultimate price.

[@Sgt_SealCluber]

Also, Japanese is very different from English in structure and Japan is different in culture, so calling her name might very well be appropriate given that.

[@Woeno]

Its also quite crazy to me that people say that demons would've been wiped out ages ago when the strongest party in history still couldnt kill some of their opponents at the time they encountered them. There were loads of human heroes, and it took exceptional ones like the hero of the south and himmel to make significant progress, the demons were hardly outmatched really.

[@Warrior-Of-Virtue]

Add to the fact that they clearly have extremely long lifespans. And we also have no idea how they reproduce seeing as they seem to have no idea what parents are. For all we know they have something akin to the Ork reproductive system from Warhammer and constantly produce spores wherever they go.

[@kouriichi]

Don't forget, it took ages for magic and techniques to develop that could even deal with demons. Qual literally could not be killed, and instead just had to be sealed until they could deal with him. It took generations to find a way to deal with his Killing Magic. Almost 100 years of development and innovation from some of the greatest sorcerer's to ever live. This Is the horror of demons, and why they haven't just "died out". Humanity were cavemen, and demons are uncaring people from the future with GUNS. Until we developed firearms of our own, we were doomed to slaughter. And even now, with mages as powerful as Frieren, we're still just people with guns, trying to deal with far stronger, amoral beings with bigger guns.

[@NukeCloudstalker]

Takes an elf (an extremely long-lived being), hiding her power near-perfectly (something demons would never do or even consider), for ages, for her to go up against A FEW OF THEM successfully in a party with both a strong mage (her apprentice) and the apprentice of the past heroes party that felled the demon king. Demons, when coordinated under their king, was likely a whole other beast, and obviously it took exceptional people working together. From a lore perspective, it makes sense just fine. I find it odd when people flip between criticizing inside and outside of the lore of a story, and do so obviously wrongly too, just to make their own personal view on a tangentially related subject. They seem to want both "its a bad story on its own" and "its a bad story because it leads to X conclusion that I don't like". And for that, those people are incredibly cringe - not only are they incapable of just saying "this piece of media communicates a worldview I disagree with, and here's why", they also spend hours upon hours to make vapid non-critiques that don't even talk about the actual content of the media. I suppose we should appreciate that they are wasting their life doing so, rather than shitting up the real world further than they already do.

[@Scornfull]

​@@NukeCloudstalkerThere are some worldviews that are just genuinely incorrect and nonsensical, I've seen people with those worldviews make absolutely terrible and nonsensical stories because of it. It's like trying to make a super fast and reliable super car out of water it just doesn't work

[@grandarkfang_1482]

"Uncensored f slur? I'm out of here." "Uncensored f slur? We are so back."

[@He-who-wakes]

Truly we are returning to the golden age.

[@lordship1543]

​@@He-who-wakesOf what?

[@He-who-wakes]

@lordship1543 of me absolutely pounding your mom

[@robinvmars6191]

​@@lordship1543that's a secret

[@peskyprince3038]

"All art is political", i think he means "there's no art we can't politicize"

[@BurghezulDjentilom]

usually coming from people who never developed the ability to distinguish reality from fiction at a very young age

[@EthanTheRedHead]

6:49 you missed a secret rock bro literally unwatchable 🥀

[@aion425]

That pikachuman2802, if they think you were being nitpicky, he should watch the guy who made the original video regarding demon dilemma. He was so nitpicky, he made shit up.

[@pulsekinesis]

23:34 They aren’t just saying “Everything is political to me”, it’s actually “There is no media that cannot be propagandize.”

[@hochdieanarchie]

nail on head. But they want to be the ones doing it, because they're control freaks.

[@the-leso-jd172]

Bigbunje wisdom

[@kakahass8845]

Honestly I'd love to hear you elaborate on this. Go on.

[@yearningcontrol]

Who is "they"?

[@jorel4225]

@@yearningcontrol you

[@eXpriest]

I think the core issue is this, even if demons are thinking feeling entities, even if they were capable of morality, their existence is incompatible with that of other intelligent species.

[@adamperdue3178]

In regards to the comment speaking about whether screaming out "Linie" is a valid expression of X Y or Z emotion, I think it's a bit contrived of an argument. There's plenty of times that I've been angry at something or somebody, and yelled their name out without any other insult (most of the time it's when my dog or cat has been an absolute jerk because other people don't typically get me quite that mad). Looking into an expression of fear without also having any concern for the thing being hurt, resulting in me calling out that thing by name, is a bit too niche for me to have much personal experience with, given that anything I'm going to know the name of that's also my ally/an asset, I'm also going to have genuine concern for because I'm not a psychopath. But I don't feel like there's any issue at all with people who lack concern for others shouting out their name in panic if person 1 is in a life-or-death situation, and person 2 was going to be able to be able to save person 1, until suddenly they were killed or incapacitated and now person 1's fate is sealed. Lacking empathy or selflessness doesn't mean that you somehow aren't able to (or wouldn't) make statements or utterances that are personal to somebody else, and I feel that it's strange that somebody would come to that conclusion.

[@Asin24]

Exactly. I mean if someone sees something valuable to them say like their phone getting run over by a car, they are going to likely shout out or react to it. It's not as if you suddenly view the phone as having life to it, its something valuable to you that holds personal use for you. It becomes a setback that you lost your useful communication device. In the end once you replace the phone chances are thoughts of the old one will slip your mind and it won't be a big deal despite in the moment being worried about it. Demons just likely see their allies as tools that while they can be personable to, in the end if they are gone it just means that particular 'tool' isn't around. to provide that function they demon would want. They wouldn't be happy about losing them, but they could very likely simply be replaced once more with any sort of 'nostalgia' for the one they lost being that they aren't as 'useful' towards them or might lack some function their old ally provided for them.

[@matthewgorr1266]

The idea that demons must be fully and at all times devoted to directly killing humans is at odds with how Frieren portrays the pursuit of long-term goals. The Hero's party set out to kill the Demon King, and during that adventure did a basically innumerable amount of things that almost certainly had no discernible effect on the final confrontation - things that could be interpreted as entirely unrelated to their goal of killing the Demon King - even though their intention to put him in the dirt is never questioned. Frieren sets out on a personal journey to seek Himmel's soul and find closure and along the way gets involved with all sorts of things that do not directly assist her in her goal. Frieren's willingness and desire to speak with his soul and complete her goal is never questioned. This is how long-term objectives are handed in Frieren. So then to suggest that when Demons do things that are not actively hunting humans or not actively in the service of hunting humans (this can be argued to be a long-term goal because demons are capable of planning far enough into the future to try to lure towns into lowering magical defenses or raising massive armies to wage war with) is evidence that they are not devoted to this cause is disingenuous. Demons are fundamentally predators of humans and human-like races (they don't seem to necessarily discriminate between human, elvish, and dwarfish prey) as described and shown by the story. Demons only learning Or evolving the capacity for human speech to hunt humans does not preclude them from using that ability for other things that are potentially unrelated to hunting humans. Side quests do not detract from the validity of the main quest. A demon using human languages to record their magical research or to communicate with other demons about things not immediately related to killing humans is not an indication that human communication systems, when used by the demons, are anything other than a tool to them, with the primary purpose of furthering their aims of hunting humans. Macht appears to be a distinct exception within demonkind who only gets as close to understanding human emotions as he does through a massive death toll - no other alternative method is conceived. The implication is that almost no demons have the capacity or willingness to learn human emotions the way Macht tries to, and the only way they can (or at least know how to) pursue that knowledge is through what amounts to controlled genocide through murderous experiments aimed at provoking specific high-intensity emotional responses. I cannot fathom a logical argument where someone suggests this process is not distinctly and absolutely evil. The broad conclusion of the El Dorado arc is that demonic coexistence with humans is probably possible - but at an insane and unfeasible theoretical cost. The portion of demons that, like Macht, are potentially capable of coexisting is some impossibly small percentage, so the rest of the demons should be executed out of hand, as they are truly nothing but a threat, and the number of humans that would need to die to teach those remaining demons how to feel human emotions is likely so massive as to be several times greater than the current total human population. That is not a check that anyone can or should be able to cash.

[@elveone]

One thing that I didn't see addressed is Lextorias's assumption that demons only exist in Christian mythology and that the demons in Frieren are based on Christian mythology to begin with. Both of these assumptions are false. The demons are actually not called demons in the anime, it is just that is the translation that we get in english. They are called Mazoku which is an eastern concept of a race that is threatening the humans or is fighting the gods. IIRC these assumptions also were used to serve as a base of some arguments about the demon's role in the world.

[@Woeno]

off topic but dead cells is peak

[@notaheretic6675]

true, have a cookie.🍪🍪

[@frank_calvert]

i could spend hours watchin different people shitting on that demon video

[@HousekiMitai]

LMFAO that guy really thought he was onto something

[@hochdieanarchie]

@@HousekiMitai They always do, people like him aren't actually clever and are educated beyond their actual intelligence. Or, well, brainscrubbed since they just regurgitate propaganda for midwits.

[@NellyP3]

It’s honestly fascinating, dude makes a video about a Japanese cartoon, face revealed. And for about an hour they effortlessly display for the WORLD to see that: they just don’t understand how human empathy works. I’ve NEVER seen anything like it. Like this shit belongs in a museum.

[@yearningcontrol]

​@@NellyP3oh damn you know how human empathy works?!, show me the link to the schematic bro, i need it for my homework.

[@Whydoesthishappen]

@@yearningcontrolHuman empathy is the ability to understand what they’re feeling like stepping into one’s shoes. Understanding their struggle. There you go bud only a few seconds of google searches can get you the answers you need.

[@enumaelish9193]

Who even are these demon apologists? Maybe if they had two heads and six arms instead of looking like conventionally attractive people, they could get it through their heads that they're intelligent monsters who prey on people and there is no parallel you can draw between them and humans. I don't see any goblin apologists around despite goblins being sentient and capable of communication and planning.

[@olafgurke4699]

I heard there were some back when Goblin Slayer aired. Bugposters will be bugposting, it seems like.

[@AndrewJohnson-n3m]

people that acknowledge making a intelligent character whose evil motivation is their "nature" is an interesting concept that leads to a lot of interpretation.

[@ForTheJerusalem]

On Frieren's age in the Aura fight, Frieren specifically said 'mage', so i would say she is probably older, as one could argue that she only became a mage after her village got slaughtered and she started training.

[@lloydgush]

You are adding 50years tops to that, frieren clearly didn't took sabatical years before her studies and almost certainly started learning as a kid.

[@tardigrade8019]

@@lloydgushI would say a few centuries at least. She was the strongest in her village when it got destroyed, and had a decent amount of mana.

[@lloydgush]

@tardigrade8019 fiddy! Gifted kid!

@@lloydgush childhood for elves in many medias is 100 years, you being a teenager in DND for example is in the range between the 100, young for the elves of tolkien is in the 75 to 100 too apparently -This can be infered of how Legolas wasnt allowed to go to the battle of the 5 houses because he was too young- so it either 75 or 100 years, not a minimal addendum considered Aura was powerful already with 500 years

[@lloydgush]

Frieren was a prodigy.

[@Khazar321]

Half of these comments you show seem to either miss the point or just make stuff up and feel close to headcanon… It’s like at some point these people had an opinion/idea about this topic and then every information/data they picked up from it was so extremely skewed through that lens, that it deviates from reality. This has been getting worse and worse over the years I feel.

[@hochdieanarchie]

Schools don't actually teach critical thinking and the unfortunate souls he has highlighted here will always lack it.

[@MistaHoward]

There has been a concerted push in online discourse of the idea that you don't need to experience a work to engage in discussions of it. Personally, I blame that sentiment for the rapidly deterioration of media discourse on the internet. Simply put, it seems like people make shit up for this argument because they haven't watched the show, let alone read the manga. Thus, all their empirical data on the topic is filtered through biased internet arguments and lacking critical context. Three Houses discourse is a good example of this, because the majority of the people excusing Edelgard's actions haven't actually played the game to completion. They completed Edelgard's route and believe they have all the answers despite the majority of the game's lore being in the other three routes. Further, many people lack the metacontext about Edelgard's route being developed by KT instead of ISIS, and how it was originally planned as a villanous route before being reworked to be more ambiguous.

[@olafgurke4699]

@@MistaHoward Never before have I been offended by something I have to agree with. I do think Edelgard is in the right, flawed as her methods may have been, but I also haven't finished the other routes yet, so you might be correct that my opinion might change once I finish them. Also, is her route being developed by a different studio the reason it is shorter than the others? I feel like we could've gotten some really, really good stuff after the unification against TWSITD, the true villains of the setting. Ultimately, I wish we could've gotten the three of them to talk it out, though I suppose that would've made for a rather boring war game if there is no war.

[@MistaHoward]

@@olafgurke4699 I won't elaborate so as to avoid spoilers, but basically she's operating entirely off false information fed to her by the Slithers. For some reason she just believes for no reason because her route's story was hurriedly changed last minute and is rushed as hell as a result - this entire point is never even acknowledged by the game. She also starts a continental war to solve problems that would have been solved on their own faster had she not, AND hers is the only route where the slithers aren't defeated during the actual story (only randomly in an epilogue because again, unfinished story). It's why the route has the most unique maps out of any post-common route. They didn't expect the fan reaction to her in the trailers, so her plot was rewritten to be less villanous before release. Hence why there's so much out-of-place waifupandering with her, why the Slithers are killed offscreen in Hubert's epilogue, and why you're given an escape hatch in the form of the church route (which is mostly just a copypaste of Claude's route with a different final map). Many units (mostly recruits) are also completely out of character in her route, including Edelgard herself, who is a much better character in every other route than in her own. I think that also contributed a lot to the discourse around the game being so divisive, because many people who only played one of the other routes mistakenly assume Edelgard is like that in her own route when that's not actually the case. I think a golden route would seriously hurt the game though, it would have to split off so early on in order for Edelgard to not be past the point of no return that it would basically be a different story entirely.

[@mwwq1]

About the thing from separating art from the artist, In my opinion, If you like the media made, you are allowed to enjoy it, I mean, we still play ride of the valkerys even though Wagner was Extreamly anti semetic, like worse than H-man type of anti-semetic but we can still enjoy his music, just like I still have nostalgic thoughts over "I believe I can fly" by R-Kelly. you can have great memories or enjoy genuinely good art and media even when it is done by absolute monsters.

[@kringle7804]

dilemma: a situation in which one has to choose between two or more things, ways, or plans that are equally unsatisfactory They give us two options kill demons before they kill us or allow demons to kill us for the hope even just one becomes a good. yeah I think the answer is clear

[@yearningcontrol]

I would have zero problem if the work engaged with it as an actual dilemma, as in frieren actually being emotionally shaken or traumatized from the experience of killing uncountable humanoids that even if just out of instinct, cried, pleaded, begged and bargained for their lives. Instead we have the story of a pest control middle age man in the body of a cute elf girl that just off handedly scoffs at the demons like "you are just animals and i feel nothing from exterminating you"

[@vienle4089]

​@@yearningcontrol i think it's actually a refreshing take to see someone so uncompromising about it, and the series doesn't try to make the demons out to be good or misunderstood or anything along the lines of "not bad". Demons manipulate humans to prey on them and they don't feel bad about it (they look down on humans too), so why should I or Frieren give them a courtesy they don't deserve. She's over 1000 years old, she's seen the consequences of letting down your guard from all that crying and begging.

[@yearningcontrol]

@@vienle4089 she is a 1000 years old showing the wonders of learning the human value of time and crying over a loss that statistically she should have felt like 30 times, and by the same math should have being backstabed, lied to, and cheated by other sapient species that aren't demons, so why not make her emotionless and uncaring whetever a demons lies to her, or a human/dwaf lies to her and just scoff like "you are just a demon whit out horns". why the highly specifically, she is battle harden by demons over a thousand years, oh but she is also just a sweet summer child that is just getting to know the world.

[@reviewspiteras]

​@@yearningcontrol the demons killed her entire family and town with 0 remorse. She has been killing demons for thousands of years. The show has already give you plenty of reason why she doesn't care when you kill those monsters

[@celestialmeatbun5624]

​@@yearningcontrol you didn't watch the show did you. It already answer your question

[@nobodyshome6792]

We have successful shows that promote rape, violence, murder and slavery. (Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, Monster, Death Note, Akira. Berserk..... just to name a few.) These themes can be utilized or included into a world or story, and they aren't automatic going to push people away from the product.

[@maddmind3756]

*Edit* So I finally got to the part of the video you were obviously referencing with this comment and now see why you worded it the way you did. I would have probably put quotations around promote for clearity however. lol */edit* Given your second sentence I'm confused about your first so maybe "promote" was the wrong choice of words there. None of those shows promote any of those things. They include them in the story but in no way do they promote them or claim them to be "good" things from a moral stand point. Case in point; Death Note contains a main character who does indeed revel in his power and murder almost indiscriminately and it is a very good character study but he is CLEARLY framed as to be on a downward spiral into madness that leads to his own justified end. If anything is promoted in death note it is a push back against people that feel all criminals should be treated like trash and disposed of while they are so far removed from the concept.

[@jannegrey]

"promote" is a bit of a wrong word to use in this context. "Promote" would be showing them as "undoubtedly positive things that people should do more". Or at least play some positive spin on it. If you've read some Hentai - that might fall under that category. But it's not mainstream and it's hard to say that people read it for the story (there are exceptions of course).

[@anglosaxiphone8246]

​@@maddmind3756I really like your response. Death Note shows that justice is can be abused by whoever dictates right or wrong. Light enjoys the power trip. His killing of innocenta who got in his way proved he was no better. What seperated Light from a serial killer was how he presented his cause. Blinding the masses with words to affirm that he is on their side. I friggin love that subversion of "good guy only kills bad guy" cause the detectives he killed were only doing their jobs.

[@TheScorpion0081]

I think the word here is "depict." These shows depicts acts of violence, not promote it.

[@hochdieanarchie]

Saying any of these shows PROMOTE it is so dishonest You're right, nobodys home in your head, lol.

[@jaredelliott5778]

The comment at 2:48 regarding your Catholicism just read as “I disagree with some points you made, and I disagree with Catholicism. So even though I can’t think of any examples where your religion is the reason I disagree with you I’m gonna say something about it”. It comes across as someone who can’t think of an actual rebuttal so they just threw shit at the wall hoping it would stick

[@Alberic_Str31N]

A couple things I feel the urge to mention: 1. We *must* limit the discussion to the Frieren manga. The broader IRL nature of evil, morality, and all that jazz is a huge discussion. When you get down to brass tacks, there are multiple theories of morality (hell, of reality even) and the question of evil seems to have fascinated humans since forever. Even just in anime there is a very popular other franchise in which an evil priest tries to birth basically Satan, because said evil priest was born evil, he was born "inhuman", unable to feel joy at anything but the suffering of others, but he agonizes over his condition because he has an otherwise fully functional set of morals, so he *needs* to let an absolute evil into this world, because only said evil (by recognizing itself as evil or not) can answer if the priest ought to consider himself evil. I'm speedrunning the concept from memory so take it with a pinch of salt, but it's exactly the sort of existential dread that this sort of question awakens that makes it so interesting from a writing standpoint. And especially since, in real-life, we don't have aliens. We don't have fully sentient and sapient human-like beings that are otherwise not human. And this seems to legtimately glitch out our brains. If in the real world we see something walk like a human, talk like a human, and emote like a human, then we conclude that's a human. See with great apes, if they appear human enough, a switch goes off in our brains and we see the chimp as a human on some level. It also happens with other mammals at a lesser level, when we see an animal grieve for their young, it pulls at our heartstrings, we feel their pain (that's how empathy work)s. Anyway, it is actually a complicated and fascinating subject that is also way above our paygrade, if we don't limit ourselves to arguing about the canon of a work, we'll never end this. 2. Because we really must focus on the work, we need to be precise about this. Even if it's kinda nitpicking. For example Macht, the most human of demons who mastered so many different feelings, when he recounts them, he does so externally. He does not describe feeling sorrow, he describes recognizing that the poor human in front of him is feeling sorrow. Or rage. Or guilt. We don't technically see Macht feel those feelings, only his ability to recognize them. 3. The Aura thing. Alright, you guys read way too many doujins. Repeat after me: You shall not try to use the One Ring to do good. You shall not try to use the One Ring to do good. It's the same principle with Aura (and demons in general). To explain it a little bit more: the submission magic Aura used is not perfect, strong-willed humans can temporarily overcome it, demons play the long game, demon minds are so alien to the other races that something that intuitively makes sense to us people may not for them and specifically, Aura made damn sure to not control living beings long enough for it to become a problem. You're just creating a problem for yourself down the line. Yes, Aura was cute, the only thing to do was to end her, it's okay. 4. Back to more serious points, the Frieren manga makes two distinctions: One based on having a short or long lifespan, and one between people and monsters. As such, dwarves often end up being the bridge between elves and humans. Frieren as a character is so long-lived only the very few remaining elves could understand her mindset (and vice versa) *or* extremely interestingly, demons. Due to her age and efficiency mindset, Frieren and the demons she meets are very much on the same wavelength, which does create an interesting mirroring. It does not, however, create an equivalency. For all her faults, Frieren is a person (also true of other elves) and as such she intuitively understands the important stuff (for lack of a better term). She can completely misread people, and love is one hell of a foreign concept for her, but she nonetheless understands the important stuff. To dig Aura back out of her grave again, upon first meeting her and her army of zombies, Frieren did what Aura would have done in her position and blasted them with cold efficiency. But Frieren, not at this point, not earlier, and not later in the story, never mistakes what's important (and what flies way over Aura's head, not that it's difficult...), namely: to value the wishes and the ideals of those dear to you, even past their death. Demons, time and time again, are shown to not be people, they just don't get it. They can think, they can reason, they can articulate logical arguments but "because that would be an insult to their way of life" is not an argument they can understand. Their reasoning stops at : "That other dude is dead, he can't exactly take umbrage to what you're doing now, can he?" That's the thing, that's the point, that's the alien part of them. 5. Demons being evil (and not being people) doesn't mean they're not characters, or that they cannot be admirable, or cannot be tragic. Macht is absolutely tragic, and Frieren notes that she respects at least a part of him. And when Macht explains his heartfelt (as much as he can) desire to coexist with humans, Frieren doesn't shoot it down because it's ridiculous, because demons don't deserve it after all they've pulled, or any other moral argument. She answers (as is typical in this manga) with a clinical and logical rebuttal. This desire of his is what will push him to kill humans. As such he is an extinction level threat to humans dwarves and elves, and as such she will kill him. There is no denial of the tragedy of Macht's wish, it's just a "on behalf of all those your desire will kill: no." Us as the audience, we can still be sad that demons die, we can still find them tragic, or feel a weird sense of kinship as they do their best to make sure their race survive. But in the context of the demons in this manga, if a character feels those feelings and decides not to kill a demon, that's a failing. A failing that demons are all to suited to exploit. That's the limit of Frieren's position. She doesn't condemn, she doesn't torture, she doesn't feel all warm and tingly inside when a demon dies. It's just that the objectively correct choice is to kill the damn demon. 6. And to wrap up, the whole "everything is political" and the "I fundamentally disagree that we should have a story where humanoids are pure, unrepenting evil." Those are, indeed, conversation enders. First of all "everything is political" is not an argument, it's a wish. If you repeat it long enough it may just become true. When people keep trying to bring it back to real world politics, what they're saying is that they don't reallt care about what we're talking about, they only care about it in that this could be a vessel to talk about (their) politics. The only correct answer is to say no. As for the call that Frieren demons being evil is bad and should not be, this is also a conversation ender, because at this point the person is telling you that they *cannot* accept demons just being evil. It hurts them on some personal level. And as such they will take every liberty with the work we're discussing to prove their point. Case in point with Aura's little envoys. "Look how the blonde dude obviously reacts with pain when his ally dies." Okay, why didn't he give two sh!ts about the death of his other compatriot? If demons can feel empathy, then why now and not then? Probably because he likes that little girl demon more. Because he has humans emotions or because he respects her more as she is closer to his level? Hell if we know. Do we see other beautiful moments of demon camaraderie? Nah, not really. When the kid demon, who sneak-attacked the winged mage ("oh that kid was so human, look how much of a kid he was!" the little pint-size murderbot) died, his boss didn't give two sh!ts, beyond appreciation at said kid demon being useful to him. Demons routinely need to be coerced to help their own kind (Macht and the demon who sees the future). They have a common interest, the survival of demonkind, but they clearly don't care about each other. Even Solitar, who has interacted positively with Macht, her fellow human otaku, on some occasions, came back in the story intending on killing him. And the end of that conversation was pretty much "yup, we're demons, we're fxcked in the head, it makes sense because it doesn't make sense". But someone who hates the idea of demons still being evil even though they're sentient, sapient, and look human, will bring any case of a demon seemingly acting like a normal person (blondie screaming when his partner got done in, pintsize murderbot being joyful, etc...) and will use that to disregard and invalidate the rest, disregarding a thousand example of demons being evil at the wave of a hand. That's why point 2. was important. We need to focus on the work, even to the point of being nitpicky. If the person we're talking to cherry picks examples to make an exception the norm, and to extrapolate that into a completely incompatible point with the rest of the manga, then that person is being illogical and we need to stop engaging. tl;dr Humans IRL really don't like recognizing something as human and yet non-human. If fxcks with our brains. We need our aliens to be human. When there are demons, human-looking creatures who are nonetheless irredeemably evil, this flips the switch in our brain, it's a cognitive dissonance, we need to resolve it, either by dissociating the demon from humanity, or by in fact recognizing said demon as fully human. By making the demon not evil. In the Frieren universe this is a tactic demon employ to bait, exploit, and kill humans. When flesh and blood IRL humans claim that no, demons in Frieren are not actually evil, what they're really saying is that they, actual IRL flesh and blood humans, got played by freaking fictional deceivers. How embarrassing.

[@vladprus4019]

"tl;dr Humans IRL really don't like recognizing something as human and yet non-human. If fxcks with our brains." Looking at the AI progress, I would say it would be good for humans to get used to it being real possibility, not just hypothethical wondering.

[@lees4416]

My friend, you just found your niche on youtube. Please, please don`t stop making stuff like that video

[@hoseja]

"niche" I don't think hour-long reactions to doughy breadtubers is much of a niche.

[@lees4416]

@hoseja ehh why not though? They could also be shorter and better scripted addressing the main points like MentisWave usually does (kinda bad example because it's not a politics or economics channel, but you get the idea)

[@hoseja]

@@lees4416 because there's like twenty other chuds already doing just that. It's a saturated space.

[@malicekerendu3574]

Why humanise a species that preys on humans? Should we give lions human rights because they feed us to their cubs?

[@lees4416]

@@malicekerendu3574 it's different. In case of demons it's actually worse, because they are sapient

[@yearningcontrol]

If cows gained the ability to exterminate humanity should they do it, and if so would that be justified?.

[@estevaoM524]

12:46 "frieren spent more times with demons and Himel than anyone else"(paraphrased); Nope, that's just wrong. When Himmel tries to recruit Frieren he was with the priest i forgot the name of and Eizen, plus, from what the show, well, shows, Frieren spent 10 years with Himmel, went to do her own things for 50 and only then she saw him again, so to say "she spent more time with Himmel than anyone else is just completely wrong

[@kakahass8845]

The priest is Heiter and the name of the dwarf is "Eisen" in German intervocalic "S" is always /z/.

[@estevaoM524]

@@kakahass8845 much appreciated kind person 🙏

[@HaveYouEverBeenMellow]

From what I remember Ubel only kills people that intend to harm her first. She has no hang ups about taking a life to protect herself

[@erejnion]

As far as I can tell, saying the name is indeed pretty typical in Japanese. Cultural differences.

[@jingusflorpus4274]

Crazy timing, I just got done watching your original video and now this one gets uploaded immediately after

[@Kiwi-Araga]

People being offended by a 3-letter word is on them for giving words too much power. You saw in Frieren how a spell able to pulverize entire armies became "mundane" because people started to use it and developed a defense for it. You see the opposite with some words nowadays. The more you try to claim a word as "bad" and censor it, the more power is going to have against some people, while other words are losing their meaning for being overused and misused. A word has the meaning the people gave it. What will happen if everyone will use vegetables names instead of words not allowed on some platforms? Will the vegetables names get censored at some point because other people will find them offensive?

[@Xeraghusta]

Whilst I cannot speak for him, I believe that he was trying to argue from a nurturing perspective. Most stories, especially anime, have it where people can be raised or taught to be good or evil. For his example in Lord of The Rings, the orcs weren't created evil, they were turned evil. This means that despite them being unequivocally evil, it is possible for them to become good again. So I can understand his frustration with Frieren being a story about how demons have a nature that cannot be changed. That they are condemned to be born evil, live evil, and die evil. It actively goes against the Christian world view. The idea that people aren't born evil they're made evil. Or as an alternative even if they were born evil, they can learn to be good. His problem is that he is trying to argue that because of his world view that demons in Frieren could have the potential to be good. Yet the truth is that the world of Frieren is beyond his ideals. In Frieren, demons are unequivocally, undeniably, and irredeemably evil.

[@Spellweaver5]

He admitted that he only argues about it because he thinks it's morally bad to have a story with naturally evil beings, not because he truly believes demons to be capable of good. In other words: he knows full well that he's factually wrong.

[@semideadnat]

I think with the separating the art from the artist can be a slippery slope on one hand you are allowed to enjoy something but the victims who were targeted will feel like that would be disrespectful and a dig at them. Because while you can be a nice person or have no intention of targeting that group they will separate your actions and words from you. which I think both are valid but I'm more in the middle of that as the topic is fairly complex.

[@Zero-no5vf]

I quite like that you are not involved on the culture war, not everyone should get involved and is good to focus on the media... Black Eagles best house!!!

[@chack321]

12:55 This is WRONG. Frieren spent 10 years with Himmel. She spent more time with her master Flamme. And with all with literally ALL of the other Heroes party members (since they survived Himmel AND are shown to be spending time with Frieren after his death).

[@1estel1ch.42]

LONGMAN BAD MENTIONED

[@EnderElohim]

1:35 Psychopaths problem is lack of empathy and most of the time when they know why it is they have issues like feeling superiour and assume because they dont feels like other people they are just above them. First step toward fixing them come from them understanding why they dont feels like other people is their mental issue. They are not innately evil.

[@Arma-S]

Ngl, uncensored f-bomb caught me offguard too. But it made me respect you more, because you say what you want, and not "say what you should to get least backlash"

[@Arexion5293]

I don't personally give a damn about the words being used, but rather how the words are used and why. Context determines the intent and meaning behind words after all, as without it an assembly of letters is meaningless. And in general I just like it when people occasionally say offensive stuff but in context where it's clear they don't really mean it. A.k.a dark humour, as this displays underlying understanding of the weight of these words and also shows one is able to engage in contexts where the text is approached in a deeper context beyond the surface level meaning. Plus this is the internet, freedom of speech means freedom to offend as everything is offensive to someone.

[@virtuosoflux]

In case this ever gets read: So far as the comment at 23:00 goes, I don't really agree. I won't bother commenting on most of it, but so far as a name being personal... I use people's names a lot more often than most folk. If I know your name, odds are I'm going to be using it when referring to or about you. I don't do it to be personal, I just do it to be specific so it's know precisely who I am speaking about. In this particular case, I think it's pretty fair to assume there's more than one emotion happening at once. 'Linie!' likely contained surprise, fear, anger, panic, and desire (for a solution) all at the same time. Or, y'know, some variation thereof. Whatever version of that which goes on in a demon noggen. I might of misunderstood things, but if I were Lugner in this situation, I definitely would of said the demon girl's name while having most or all of those emotions.

[@baconboi4482]

I have a political position. My Mom is the best type of joke out their and no other joke comes close

[@olafgurke4699]

I agree that your mom is a joke.

[@liquidsweg4858]

I heart Slurs

[@Misutoslope]

King shit

[@ekans4555]

So...Dr.Jay has a potential to be the next leaf guy or thick furry tvhead guy. Wonder how will he end up in few years.

[@petermuller9480]

17:15 I'm not going to spoonfeed you ANYTHING here. You have to read the manga yourself. If you don't, your opinion on the story will only be based on "scraps" instead of you having the full width of information necessary. Me telling you what happens already is an act of interpretation to some degree, and it will not provide you with the full context regardless. Unless you read and interpret a story yourself, IN FULL, your opinion on ANY story is invalid. That's how it is. Parroting other people is NOT an opinion. In that case, I would be better off just talking to the people whose words you parrot.... Moreover, what EXACTLY do you even want me to describe to you? I already told you, that the Eldorado Arc SHOWS scenes of demons questioning themselves in inner monologues and scenes where they actually show (at least some) emotions. Should I provide you with a detailed visual description of all the manga panels or something? 🤦‍♂ Just read the manga, for Christ's sake! Here's another example, for comparison: 99% of people who reviewed Dune have very obviously only read the first book, and if you've read all six of Frank Herbert's books, you can immediately tell. It is very obvious, that these """"reviewers"""" are blissfully unaware of all the subversions of the "strong male lead protagonist", that happen in Dune Messiah (=the 2nd book). Most of these people's interpretations and conclusions are just objectively wrong, and the primary reason for this is, that they didn't read the whole story, instead just gaslighting themselves into believing that book 1 is a standalone...lmao. Moral of the story: Read a story to the end, before either condemning it or praising it to high heaven. I'd recommend doing the same with Frieren. It turns into an absolute JOKE of a story, just wait until season 2 drops and we are """blessed""" with the time travel arc. Can't wait for the fans trying tho explain away THAT narrative disaster, which even a toddler could have written better. 🤣

[@Scornfull]

I believe the reason for people getting upset over you ignoring the political part of the discussion is because while despite doing a great job explaining the "how" you're ignoring the "why" aspect of the discussion, modern leftists see everything through a political lens which is why it's difficult for a lot of people to ignore it because it's literally the root reason of why these types of people come up with these outlandish takes. It's all in service of their ideology that governs every factor of their being and lives, I'm not saying they're justified either. I'm just giving my two cents on the possible reason for it.

[@chaossnowkitsune6377]

Edelgard simps unite!

[@olafgurke4699]

Edelgard is Baedelgard!

[@drewblackmatter6669]

okay, not sure i agree with the idea of ''we should be cordial to psychopaths'' Why in the mother of all that is holy and sacred would you show compassion, empathy, kindness, and understanding to someone who doesn't even know the meaning of them? Are you TRYING to get yourself killed?

[@Zedkiller1101]

I thought the original video was well crafted enough to warrant a subscription. This is a good defense of it. (Deus Vult, brother)

[@justzion5612]

I'm not gonna lie, that f-slur was based and funny

[@kakahass8845]

Ok, I take a little bit of issue with your definition of "Everything is political". 23:51 If you agree that people's opinions on the world will influence their creative works, is that not the same as agreeing that everything is political? Personally I agree that everything is political but I don't really use media to talk about politics, I can't think of a single game/show/movie where I stopped to ponder about its politics, because I'm not insane and I can recognize that while everything *is* political we are not obligated to engage with those politics. Personally, it seems to me that you jumped to conclusions without fulling understanding the meaning of the phrase or how its used as a counter-argument. This also seems like a intuitive personality type thing rather than an sensing personality type thing (As in MBTI personality types) btw so I don't blame you.

[@Aciarr]

so everything has politics but those politics dont necessitate conversation or dissection? if so i agree completely

[@kakahass8845]

@@Aciarr Exactly.

[@dr.jayunscripted]

Saying that one's opinion on the world will influence their creative works isn't necessarily a reinforcement that everything is political, because that's not the only influence on the process. The makers of Doom didn't set out to make a story about avarice leading to disaster, they set out to make a cathartic game where you tear demons to shreds for fun, with the former merely there as the most basic justification possible for why we're here killing demons. One may be able to take that message away, but anyone who would earnestly say we should realign our society along the lines of the Doomguy would be seen as missing the forest for the trees. Much of the backlash to the "everything is political" statement isn't a refutation that media can't or shouldn't explore serious subject matter, but rather a dislike of the hamfisted way those who often champion such a phrase try to go about it. Too often, it seems used as the justification for works being changed in a way that leaves them worse for wear from a writing standpoint, because everything is political, it simply wasn't expressing the correct politics until now. If you're serious about not demanding we engage with a work of media on that level, then we have no quarrel, and I apologize if this comes off as being aggressive or antagonistic. It's merely an argument I've grown weary of seeing used as a justification for poor writing.

[@olafgurke4699]

@@dr.jayunscripted Where I see the "all art is political" thing most often, is on the front of the culture war. Specifically, the Helldiver forums on steam. With every new patchnote, there are are bots posting copypastas of one side or the other to farm points. One of them urges the devs to "keep the game neutral and not add any politics", to which some enlightened person, who might or might not also be a bot, replies that the game is a satire of fascism and thus inherently political. The point those people miss, I think, is that there is a difference between exploring political ideas and concepts through a fictional lense, and copy pasting contempory political issues 1:1 into a given setting. And if people say they don't want politics in their media, they mean the latter. I'll be infinitely more likely to watch a medieval fantasy show that is about helping and uplifting the oppressed and downtrodden, speaking of general ideas of freedom and all that, instead of that same show explicitly championing the freedom of LGBTQ+ people, for instance. Not that something like that couldn't be done interestingly, but because it generally isn't these days. As you said, it seems as if political messaging seems to be prioritised over crafting coherent, well-written stories, and what a surprise that most people take issue with that. Ps: Edelgard is Baedelgard, fite me. We were robbed of her full route.

[@erejnion]

I'd wager demon proliferation and the use of magic are connected, so human mages killing them is likely not really an evolutionary minus for the species.

[@lunialation666]

what is this three houses discourse? also Bernadetta is best bow user for three houses. Edelgard did everything wrong. Claude is a great character, but his ending is the worst. and finally: Dimitri needs major therapy, and i need to know what happened to his eye in blue lions ending.

[@Pepo..]

another day another WMW chapter

[@hoseja]

Bruv you have 3k subscribers between two channels? I'm just getting bigger channel vibes and it's weird.

[@BlackComet95]

> Wants consistency in the media he gets invested in > Is Catholic You can't make this up.

[@dragoneater2596]

nice segregation comment with no specifics on your criticisms lmao

[@reviewspiteras]

Chadtolic

[@BlackComet95]

@@dragoneater2596 Hi! It was a reference to the fact that the bible is the most inconsistent work of fiction ever written. It constantly contradicts itself and even though it has been heavily curated over the centuries, it was never "patched" to be internally consistent. Check out the BibViz project, they have nice graphs that perfectly showcase how flawed that compilation of works of different authors actually is. I hope it helps! ^^

[@tereninsecundus6084]

18:00 You are giving this person WAY to much lee-way in what they are saying here. It boils down to 'how dare you be critical of someone in ways I don't approve of' and a hefty, hefty helping of tone-policing and holding you to the supposed standards of others. Do not ever do this. If someone is critical of you for being critical of others, the onus is on THEM to elaborate in detail on what exactly is WRONG, and if all they have going for themselves boils down to 'I don't like your tone or the fact you are critical of this or that person' then you are not dealing with honest critique, you are dealing with a fan upset you dared target THEIR sacred cow. In this case? My bet's another bug-poster/Daemon-poster that agrees with the idea the daemons aren't bad, Frieren is. Also, 'everything is political' is the lefty way of saying that everything SHOULD have IRL politics inserted into it, specifically, political views favoring them. They are pro making everything propaganda to favor them. This is the primary reason it's extremely hard to have any sort of 'politics free relaxation area' like what you say you want to make, or that I would love to make - there is one side that can enjoy something for what it is, and the other that WILL want to subvert it for this reason alone. I wish you the best of luck.

[@NotUp2Much]

10/10 thumbnail

[@SusiFer667]

18:40 I can't tell what kind of person you are, given that I've only seen this and the original response video from you. But for me at least, I find it extremely entertaining to play a bad game and get to complain to someone about how bad it is. So at least I understand the joy of being able to complain about how bad a game is.

[@lebro4401]

I never felt so early

[@dezman311]

23:20 you know what hyperbole is, the comment does not mean in the literal sense that everything is political. As for the Mario cart bit, people were seething and crying woke, for money or out of genuine disgust that peach in the Mario movie was wearing a racing outfit. I’ll leave a second comment later, though I want you to know this is the first video I’ve seen from your channel. I clicked due to the thumbnail, so it’s effective.

[@TopOfAllWorlds]

I assumed you said the f slur because you were gay or bi and were reclaiming it. I feel unless you are what the slur refers to, you shouldn't use it. There are reasons to avoid using it that aren't just that it is offensive. I'm sure you could find another eay to provoke the reaction you are looking for, I feel it is lazy to use a slur as a shortcut to it.

[@covereddonuts1279]

Agreed

[@hochdieanarchie]

I'm bi and I don't care and that's not the context he was using it in Cope.

[@aldgate]

Why are you using lighting, incredibly boring.

[@obliviousicarus]

Why did you click on a comment reply video for the gameplay?

[@gewuerzwanze5627]

​@@obliviousicarusdead cells fans are content starved

[@aldgate]

@@obliviousicarus A joke, unfortunately not funny apparently. I give my deepest apologies.

[@schk4569]

@@aldgate nah i find it funny. and i dont know anything about dead cells

[@lePirateMan]

I would argue that objective evil, or objective morality in general, doesn't exist

[@geegee-r7f]

All i really gotta say is that ya defending death threats and general toxic behavior is your video is just wrong and ya should apologies for it.

[@pusho9117]

Whether you like it or not, it's a fact that if you post a video you know will be divisive, someone is gonna death threat you. I can literally post on twitter that i like waffles and receive death threats from pancake enjoyers. Acting like somebody posting a lazy spongebob reaction meme telling you to "kys" is equal to people writing a lengthy plan on how they're going to kill you, along with your home address is ridiculous, especially since the latter threat also doesn't lead to anything 99.9% of the time, or you would hear news of people getting murdered over internet opinions more often. Doxxing and coordinated hate campaigns with goal of deplatforming or silencing an opinion is a completely different matter however, which didn't happen in this case fortunately. Im not defending the use of death threats here, in a perfect world we would all criticise and debate each other in a respectful manner with no bad blood between us. But we don't live in a perfect world, and need to readjust our expectations and behavior accordingly.