You are strawmanning because you are not listening to any arguments people have to say, please listen to the arguments people actually make instead of insisting they are making an argument that they are not.
Either say anything of substance or leave me alone. You have come at me in two comments and said absolutely nothing in either of them. I’d love to listen to what you had to say, if you were actually willing to say anything. Unfortunately, that would require you to have a spine and actually say something that can be responded to. As it stands, you’re taking the very convenient position of just insisting that I’m wrong without saying anything I can listen to or respond to, so you can always be perfect and I can never argue against it.
I can see how what I said has come across that way, I wasn’t talking about my argument there, but you’re right, it is a poor showing of me to not commit to a position, so here mine:
Frieren isn’t a show that exists in a vacuum, we can’t just say “It explains it in the text that it is ok, so that makes it ok.” to reference something similar to the dragonball idea you mentioned earlier, if we had a story where the all the females characters were hyper-sexualised and always wore extremely skimpy outfits, obviously for male gazey reasons, would that then become ok because it is explained in-universe that they do that because of cultural reasons or something? I imagine you wouldn’t say so. Now I know you’re already going “But Frieren isn’t like that!” And you’re right, it isn’t. But my point isn’t to say “Frieren bad” it is to say that the thermian argument, the idea that an in-universe explanation for something is the only explanation, isn’t a good way to examine art.
Frieren is a great anime, the first three or so episodes were probably the best anime I think I’ve ever seen, so understand I’m not coming at this from a perspective of “I hate this and want you to hate it” but “I love this, but there’s one part of it that I don’t think adds anything to the overall story.”
And that part is the demons. They are inherently evil monsters who prey on humans. There’s nothing wrong with that. Like actually, that’s completely fine, monsters pretending to be human so they let their guard down? That’s a classic part of storytelling for a reason, it is compelling and interesting. That is not the problem with Frieren’s demons.
The problem is how Frieren, a fantasy show, with a bunch of magical stuff, goes out of its way to produce a pseudo-scientific reason for the demons. They aren’t just demons that crawled out of hell, they literally evolved to be monsters that look like humans to better destroy them. They could just be magically created or come from the pits or hell or literally have no explanation for why they exist at all, they could just be a part of the world.
But the show doesn’t do that, it tries to give a psuedo-scientific explanation, which comes with some real world baggage. The show chooses to depict a “nits make lice” scene with a young demon, saying that even the young need to be killed because they are all inherently evil and seek only the destruction of humanity. Again, in the text, this is correct, in the world of Frieren it is morally correct to slaughter young demons because they are inhuman monsters disguised as humans. And again, this wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t try to make it about how they evolved to trick humanity. I find this really fucking gross and unnecessary.
I’m sure you know what I’m getting at by now. The way the demons in Frieren are talked about is the same way the nazis talked about the Jews. Inhuman monsters that pretend to have emotions so they can manipulate and destroy people. Now obviously the demons in the show are not a stand in for Jews, they have no Jewish traits or stereotypes associated with them, and as others have put, they have a lot more in common with real world fascists than they do with any groups fascists target. But the fact that the show chooses to depict them using nazi style racial pseudoscience is baffling, it’s a very strange and pointless writing decision that sticks out like a sore thumb. I don’t know what the author’s intentions behind it are, and I don’t think the author is intending to actively spread that sort of toxic idea, but when it is a magical fantasy world and they could’ve picked literally any reason for the demon’s existence and they picked one that fascists absolutely love is quite troubling.
It sticks out, it’s uncomfortable, it doesn’t really fit well with the rest of the show’s focus, about trying to form connections with the people around us. If I had to guess, it was a botched attempt at creating villains who are a “foil” to that sort of idea, villains incapable of forming true connections with others, and for the most part, the demons work on that level. But again, the show goes out of its way to, in a magical fantasy world, provide a pseudo-scientific, not fantasy, explanation for their existence that mirrors the real world hateful beliefs of white supremacists and nazis. Again, this almost certainly isn’t intentional, and it doesn’t make the show a bad show, or you a bad person for liking it, like I said earlier, I like the show. It’s really good. But this one specific part is really bad and I don’t like it.
Also, aside from that the demon fights are by far the most boring part of the show, it just turns into generic shonen battles and I lose interest really quick, give me a million Fern taking care of sleepy Frieren scenes before another demon fight please.
This isn’t some kind of “gotcha” or even a “you must change your mind and agree with me!” kind of thing, the point is to actually explain what the problem I have with the show is. It’s like, a really minor gripe all things considered, but for some reason, some people are just flatly refusing to even consider what problems people have with the show and it is infuriating. You can like a show and also admit it has flaws, and be ok with someone else being turned away from a show because they find the flaws more off-putting than you do. Please actually listen to what I’ve said, again, not trying to “prove you wrong” or whatever, I just want you to actually understand what my problem with the show is, even if you aren’t bothered by the problem in the same way, that’s fine, I just want you to understand my position, even if it isn’t a position you would hold.
Frieren isn’t a show that exists in a vacuum, we can’t just say “It explains it in the text that it is ok, so that makes it ok.”
That isn’t what I was saying at all. I was pointing out that the criticism seems disingenuous because applying the same criticism to other parts of the show that no one ever applies those criticisms to would lead to the same conclusions. As I said, if the demons are racist, then so are the mimics and most of the other monsters. They all operate the same way. They’re all sentient beings with feelings and desires, who hunt people with varying strategies and varying degrees of success. They all evolved into their niches in the same pseudo-scientific way you’re criticizing regarding the demons. If this criticism of the demons is valid, then this:
if we had a story where the all the females characters were hyper-sexualised and always wore extremely skimpy outfits, obviously for male gazey reasons
is what Frieren is the equivalent to. The racism would be a fundamental part of the entire show. I am arguing that it is nonsensical to argue that the demons are a racist allegory and also that this is just one small misstep in an otherwise good story. If the demons are a racist allegory then Frieren is one of the most racist stories ever told, and the main characters are going around committing hate crimes in most of the episodes. They’ve fought everything from mostly normal looking animals to dragons to plant monsters to humanoid monsters. Why is it only the humanoid monsters who need to be treated as if they’re different? They only look different, and hunt in a different way. The giant plant monster hunts by magically lulling people to sleep. The treasure chest mimic hunts by ambushing greedy adventurers. The demon hunts by making the same noises people make at each other to lower their guard. I’m not arguing it’s okay because the story justifies it, I’m arguing that if it isn’t okay, it’s not okay in any part of the story. The criticism I’m making is that this complaint is leveled at a nonsensically narrow section of a larger story which does all of the same stuff.
I don’t think the demons are a racist allegory. If you do, then no part of Frieren that involves monsters isn’t racist. Those are the only two positions that make sense as far as I can see.
The problem is how Frieren, a fantasy show, with a bunch of magical stuff, goes out of its way to produce a pseudo-scientific reason for the demons. They aren’t just demons that crawled out of hell, they literally evolved to be monsters that look like humans to better destroy them. They could just be magically created or come from the pits or hell or literally have no explanation for why they exist at all, they could just be a part of the world.
Everything in Frieren is pseudo-scientifically explained. It actually goes to pretty great lengths to show that its magic system is not unexplainable mysterious woo that mystical priests conjure up on behalf of the gods. In their world it is science, and it develops as science. Intelligent beings learn about it, innovate with it, and manipulate it to their own ends. Nothing in the setting just comes out of nowhere, it is all implied to be series of hard sciences unlike our own which, while not fully understood by any character, are logical and consistent with themselves. None of the monsters crawled out of Hell or just appeared on the Earth one day. They all evolved, just like the humans and elves and dwarves and everyone else probably did. If it is racist to say it’s ok to kill demons because they hunt humans because that’s what they’ve evolved to do, exactly the same criticism can and should be leveled at the depiction of every single other monster in the entire show. Do you criticize as heavily the episode in which they kill the giant plant monster that kept putting everyone to sleep? It didn’t crawl out of Hell either. It evolved into a niche to hunt humans and propagate thereby. The only reason we never got a scene where the main characters learn that they should destroy any such plant they find is because no one ever needed to learn that. It is self-evident. Demons are the best at hunting humans because you have to learn that lesson. They’re good at making you think they’re different from the treasure chest mimics or the giant magic plants, which makes them especially dangerous to empathetic social creatures like humans, elves, and dwarves. The only “point” being made is “this is a cool fantasy monster that challenges the protagonists in a way that other monsters can’t.” Empathy is cool and good, and it should be cultivated, so it’s scary and interesting and cool to explore scenarios in which that strength of empathy is actually a weakness which can be exploited. It contextualizes the place of empathetic social creatures like humans in the world and food chain of the fantasy bullshit that’s going on in the story. In a fantastical world where the laws of physics are a little different, there’s shit out there that can use our strengths against us and that’s fun to explore.
This isn’t some kind of “gotcha” or even a “you must change your mind and agree with me!” kind of thing, the point is to actually explain what the problem I have with the show is. It’s like, a really minor gripe all things considered, but for some reason, some people are just flatly refusing to even consider what problems people have with the show and it is infuriating. You can like a show and also admit it has flaws, and be ok with someone else being turned away from a show because they find the flaws more off-putting than you do. Please actually listen to what I’ve said, again, not trying to “prove you wrong” or whatever, I just want you to actually understand what my problem with the show is, even if you aren’t bothered by the problem in the same way, that’s fine, I just want you to understand my position, even if it isn’t a position you would hold.
On the other hand, you can acknowledge that not everyone agrees with you about your particular criticism of a story, and that doesn’t make them a treatlerite “stop calling everyone you don’t like a nazi” chud. Your opinion on this story isn’t the only valid reading available and having a different opinion doesn’t make me a fascist for fuck’s sake.
It would’ve been nice if you had actually made an effort to understand what I wrote. So I’ll repeat what I said earlier. Please actually listen to people and stop strawmanning them.
You mean like when you wrote that anyone who disagrees with you about this sounds like this?
“HOW DARE YOU?! FUCK YOU! STOP CALLING EVERYONE YOU DON’T LIKE A NAZI! THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS WITH MY TREATS AND YOU’RE A CUCK WOKESCOLD IF YOU SAY THERE IS!”
I’m not strawmanning anything. I’m directly quoting you and putting in far more effort than you deserve to explain my points. You’re the only one doing any strawmanning of anyone.
You are strawmanning because you are not listening to any arguments people have to say, please listen to the arguments people actually make instead of insisting they are making an argument that they are not.
Either say anything of substance or leave me alone. You have come at me in two comments and said absolutely nothing in either of them. I’d love to listen to what you had to say, if you were actually willing to say anything. Unfortunately, that would require you to have a spine and actually say something that can be responded to. As it stands, you’re taking the very convenient position of just insisting that I’m wrong without saying anything I can listen to or respond to, so you can always be perfect and I can never argue against it.
I can see how what I said has come across that way, I wasn’t talking about my argument there, but you’re right, it is a poor showing of me to not commit to a position, so here mine:
Frieren isn’t a show that exists in a vacuum, we can’t just say “It explains it in the text that it is ok, so that makes it ok.” to reference something similar to the dragonball idea you mentioned earlier, if we had a story where the all the females characters were hyper-sexualised and always wore extremely skimpy outfits, obviously for male gazey reasons, would that then become ok because it is explained in-universe that they do that because of cultural reasons or something? I imagine you wouldn’t say so. Now I know you’re already going “But Frieren isn’t like that!” And you’re right, it isn’t. But my point isn’t to say “Frieren bad” it is to say that the thermian argument, the idea that an in-universe explanation for something is the only explanation, isn’t a good way to examine art.
Frieren is a great anime, the first three or so episodes were probably the best anime I think I’ve ever seen, so understand I’m not coming at this from a perspective of “I hate this and want you to hate it” but “I love this, but there’s one part of it that I don’t think adds anything to the overall story.”
And that part is the demons. They are inherently evil monsters who prey on humans. There’s nothing wrong with that. Like actually, that’s completely fine, monsters pretending to be human so they let their guard down? That’s a classic part of storytelling for a reason, it is compelling and interesting. That is not the problem with Frieren’s demons.
The problem is how Frieren, a fantasy show, with a bunch of magical stuff, goes out of its way to produce a pseudo-scientific reason for the demons. They aren’t just demons that crawled out of hell, they literally evolved to be monsters that look like humans to better destroy them. They could just be magically created or come from the pits or hell or literally have no explanation for why they exist at all, they could just be a part of the world.
But the show doesn’t do that, it tries to give a psuedo-scientific explanation, which comes with some real world baggage. The show chooses to depict a “nits make lice” scene with a young demon, saying that even the young need to be killed because they are all inherently evil and seek only the destruction of humanity. Again, in the text, this is correct, in the world of Frieren it is morally correct to slaughter young demons because they are inhuman monsters disguised as humans. And again, this wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t try to make it about how they evolved to trick humanity. I find this really fucking gross and unnecessary.
I’m sure you know what I’m getting at by now. The way the demons in Frieren are talked about is the same way the nazis talked about the Jews. Inhuman monsters that pretend to have emotions so they can manipulate and destroy people. Now obviously the demons in the show are not a stand in for Jews, they have no Jewish traits or stereotypes associated with them, and as others have put, they have a lot more in common with real world fascists than they do with any groups fascists target. But the fact that the show chooses to depict them using nazi style racial pseudoscience is baffling, it’s a very strange and pointless writing decision that sticks out like a sore thumb. I don’t know what the author’s intentions behind it are, and I don’t think the author is intending to actively spread that sort of toxic idea, but when it is a magical fantasy world and they could’ve picked literally any reason for the demon’s existence and they picked one that fascists absolutely love is quite troubling.
It sticks out, it’s uncomfortable, it doesn’t really fit well with the rest of the show’s focus, about trying to form connections with the people around us. If I had to guess, it was a botched attempt at creating villains who are a “foil” to that sort of idea, villains incapable of forming true connections with others, and for the most part, the demons work on that level. But again, the show goes out of its way to, in a magical fantasy world, provide a pseudo-scientific, not fantasy, explanation for their existence that mirrors the real world hateful beliefs of white supremacists and nazis. Again, this almost certainly isn’t intentional, and it doesn’t make the show a bad show, or you a bad person for liking it, like I said earlier, I like the show. It’s really good. But this one specific part is really bad and I don’t like it.
Also, aside from that the demon fights are by far the most boring part of the show, it just turns into generic shonen battles and I lose interest really quick, give me a million Fern taking care of sleepy Frieren scenes before another demon fight please.
This isn’t some kind of “gotcha” or even a “you must change your mind and agree with me!” kind of thing, the point is to actually explain what the problem I have with the show is. It’s like, a really minor gripe all things considered, but for some reason, some people are just flatly refusing to even consider what problems people have with the show and it is infuriating. You can like a show and also admit it has flaws, and be ok with someone else being turned away from a show because they find the flaws more off-putting than you do. Please actually listen to what I’ve said, again, not trying to “prove you wrong” or whatever, I just want you to actually understand what my problem with the show is, even if you aren’t bothered by the problem in the same way, that’s fine, I just want you to understand my position, even if it isn’t a position you would hold.
That isn’t what I was saying at all. I was pointing out that the criticism seems disingenuous because applying the same criticism to other parts of the show that no one ever applies those criticisms to would lead to the same conclusions. As I said, if the demons are racist, then so are the mimics and most of the other monsters. They all operate the same way. They’re all sentient beings with feelings and desires, who hunt people with varying strategies and varying degrees of success. They all evolved into their niches in the same pseudo-scientific way you’re criticizing regarding the demons. If this criticism of the demons is valid, then this:
is what Frieren is the equivalent to. The racism would be a fundamental part of the entire show. I am arguing that it is nonsensical to argue that the demons are a racist allegory and also that this is just one small misstep in an otherwise good story. If the demons are a racist allegory then Frieren is one of the most racist stories ever told, and the main characters are going around committing hate crimes in most of the episodes. They’ve fought everything from mostly normal looking animals to dragons to plant monsters to humanoid monsters. Why is it only the humanoid monsters who need to be treated as if they’re different? They only look different, and hunt in a different way. The giant plant monster hunts by magically lulling people to sleep. The treasure chest mimic hunts by ambushing greedy adventurers. The demon hunts by making the same noises people make at each other to lower their guard. I’m not arguing it’s okay because the story justifies it, I’m arguing that if it isn’t okay, it’s not okay in any part of the story. The criticism I’m making is that this complaint is leveled at a nonsensically narrow section of a larger story which does all of the same stuff.
I don’t think the demons are a racist allegory. If you do, then no part of Frieren that involves monsters isn’t racist. Those are the only two positions that make sense as far as I can see.
Everything in Frieren is pseudo-scientifically explained. It actually goes to pretty great lengths to show that its magic system is not unexplainable mysterious woo that mystical priests conjure up on behalf of the gods. In their world it is science, and it develops as science. Intelligent beings learn about it, innovate with it, and manipulate it to their own ends. Nothing in the setting just comes out of nowhere, it is all implied to be series of hard sciences unlike our own which, while not fully understood by any character, are logical and consistent with themselves. None of the monsters crawled out of Hell or just appeared on the Earth one day. They all evolved, just like the humans and elves and dwarves and everyone else probably did. If it is racist to say it’s ok to kill demons because they hunt humans because that’s what they’ve evolved to do, exactly the same criticism can and should be leveled at the depiction of every single other monster in the entire show. Do you criticize as heavily the episode in which they kill the giant plant monster that kept putting everyone to sleep? It didn’t crawl out of Hell either. It evolved into a niche to hunt humans and propagate thereby. The only reason we never got a scene where the main characters learn that they should destroy any such plant they find is because no one ever needed to learn that. It is self-evident. Demons are the best at hunting humans because you have to learn that lesson. They’re good at making you think they’re different from the treasure chest mimics or the giant magic plants, which makes them especially dangerous to empathetic social creatures like humans, elves, and dwarves. The only “point” being made is “this is a cool fantasy monster that challenges the protagonists in a way that other monsters can’t.” Empathy is cool and good, and it should be cultivated, so it’s scary and interesting and cool to explore scenarios in which that strength of empathy is actually a weakness which can be exploited. It contextualizes the place of empathetic social creatures like humans in the world and food chain of the fantasy bullshit that’s going on in the story. In a fantastical world where the laws of physics are a little different, there’s shit out there that can use our strengths against us and that’s fun to explore.
On the other hand, you can acknowledge that not everyone agrees with you about your particular criticism of a story, and that doesn’t make them a treatlerite “stop calling everyone you don’t like a nazi” chud. Your opinion on this story isn’t the only valid reading available and having a different opinion doesn’t make me a fascist for fuck’s sake.
It would’ve been nice if you had actually made an effort to understand what I wrote. So I’ll repeat what I said earlier. Please actually listen to people and stop strawmanning them.
You mean like when you wrote that anyone who disagrees with you about this sounds like this?
Source:
I’m not strawmanning anything. I’m directly quoting you and putting in far more effort than you deserve to explain my points. You’re the only one doing any strawmanning of anyone.
Frieren is nowhere near good enough to justify you being this weird about it