(CR) Sousou no Frieren (Frieren: Beyond Journey's End)

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by ryllharu

Zoltraak is something that Frieren handed to humans,

It is not. She never took credit for Zoltraak.

I agree that there's plenty of things that seem written on the fly, but that's not one of them.

[ryllharu]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

None of those things are even near a Deux Ex Machina. If you don't know what the term means, don't use it.

A character appearing at the Precise moment they're needed to resolve a problem or provide crucial information to resolve the problem that was otherwise not going to be resolved...hmm.

That's the exact definition of one.

The team was within moments of trying what the other trio just failed at. Their surviving member arrives at the exact moment needed to avoid that. Lawine arrives at the exact moment to exposition dump about the nature of the clones and a future risk from previously-unestablished information about her brother doing a prior expedition.

The arrival of characters at the precise moment they're needed without any hindrances. The sudden reveal of Frieren's technique weaknesses. That's pretty much exactly how they happen in most fiction after the classical era.

The author painted themselves into a corner with this test and rewrites lore and conveniently times required character information transfer to correct it.

It does itself further disservice by refusing to allow for prior established solutions. There are two characters who can easily restrain the Frieren clone with a spell. They're held back in plot conveniences while characters like Lawine arrive without any challenges shown. That's pretty common when the power balance gets messed up, but its always a sign of poor planning.

[TURI123456]

Originally Posted by ryllharu

I'll open as the voice of dissent this time.

The fights are very cool, it's all wonderful visually.

But this part of the exam has just been badly written. It contradicts a great deal of earlier events (like Flamme insta-killing three demons but now zoltraak is faster all of a sudden?), and is stuffed full of the right person arriving at the precise correct moment to deliver important knowledge before the main team makes a strategic mistake (which happened twice in this episode alone!).

Then it rounds it out with giving Frieren a comically stupid weakness just because without one she wouldn't be defeatable given the previous arcs. Sure, they've said that human mages have beaten her before, but that would have been better established by the flashback instead of manufacturing a weakness that really had zero foreshadowing. It didn't have to be Fern. It didn't have to be an existing spell like zoltraak. They established that Serie and Frieren agreed that Frieren could be killed by innovative human magic. Zoltraak is something that Frieren handed to humans, where "modern magic" is something human mages have been deriving all along and more thematically appropriate for this arc.

And don't get me started on Methode. She apparently is capable of whatever the story needs at the moment, when Frieren can also do triage healing.

This entire test is one series of deus ex machina moments after another.

It's such a backslide from the first exam and the rest of the series as a whole.

I agree that the part with Lawine (and the others tested) could be done better, however, I think that you should wait for now with your opinion about the fight against Frieren clone because I don't think the fight is over yet.
About Frieren's weakness, it is just a way to say to us that she has one. I think that will be used in the future. About the part with Zoltraak, I disagree with you Frieren is maybe the one that gives this spell to humans but humans themself are the one that became better than her by using this spell.
About the speed of the spell, I don't think that we can judge what spell is faster, also the fast speed of the spell could be just because Fern knows and has trained on Zoltraak for most of her life so she can use this spell in that speed.

By the way, two questions that I thought about who do you think is stronger Denken, or Methode? And do we know what is the age of Kanne and Lawine?

[ryllharu]

Originally Posted by TURI123456

About the part with Zoltraak, I disagree with you Frieren is maybe the one that gives this spell to humans but humans themself are the one that became better than her by using this spell.
About the speed of the spell, I don't think that we can judge what spell is faster, also the fast speed of the spell could be just because Fern knows and has trained on Zoltraak for most of her life so she can use this spell in that speed.

Humans were handed zoltraak by Frieren to figure out how to counter it. They hadn't really changed it, their development was on the barrier spell. Frieren is explicitly the one who modified it to by default be better at killing demons than Qual originally made it. "Basic" attack magic is "Frieren-modified demon-killing magic."

It's also very difficult to swallow the notion that Frieren is somehow worse at detecting zoltraak because it is "more modern magic than elves are used to," when Frieren has been more involved with humans than most elves, actively training with the very same spell for 80 years, and been gathering new spells constantly for 1000 years.

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by ryllharu

Humans were handed zoltraak by Frieren to figure out how to counter it. They hadn't really changed it, their development was on the barrier spell. Frieren is explicitly the one who modified it to by default be better at killing demons than Qual originally made it. "Basic" attack magic is "Frieren-modified demon-killing magic."

Once again, no. Show me once where Frieren takes credit for Zoltraak's analysis and development in this scene.

Originally Posted by ryllharu

It's also very difficult to swallow the notion that Frieren is somehow worse at detecting zoltraak because it is "more modern magic than elves are used to," when Frieren has been more involved with humans than most elves, actively training with the very same spell for 80 years, and been gathering new spells constantly for 1000 years.

Also no. We know that she isolated herself in the forest for 500 years until Himmel showed up.
She also didn't become proactive about traveling until after regretting Himmel's death.

I'll give you that she's more involved with humans than most elves, but that's hardly an accomplishment.

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by ryllharu

A character appearing at the Precise moment they're needed to resolve a problem or provide crucial information to resolve the problem that was otherwise not going to be resolved...hmm.

That's the exact definition of one.

The team was within moments of trying what the other trio just failed at. Their surviving member arrives at the exact moment needed to avoid that. Lawine arrives at the exact moment to exposition dump about the nature of the clones and a future risk from previously-unestablished information about her brother doing a prior expedition.

The arrival of characters at the precise moment they're needed without any hindrances. The sudden reveal of Frieren's technique weaknesses. That's pretty much exactly how they happen in most fiction after the classical era.

The author painted themselves into a corner with this test and rewrites lore and conveniently times required character information transfer to correct it.

It does itself further disservice by refusing to allow for prior established solutions. There are two characters who can easily restrain the Frieren clone with a spell. They're held back in plot conveniences while characters like Lawine arrive without any challenges shown. That's pretty common when the power balance gets messed up, but its always a sign of poor planning.

No, that is not the definition of the term. The term was invented for typical classical theater plays, where a literal god would show up to solve the plot of the play, without any set-up for such.

The last member of the trio showing up was set up in the last episode. That's not out of nowhere, that was properly set up. Lawine giving the information about Spiegel was not essential to the plot, since the group already planned to get past the clone of Frieren. That the group had to guard against the other clones also was not something which they wouldn't have done if Lawine would not have shown up with some additional information. Lawine and Kanne were in the dungeon, so their arrival is also not unusual.

Frieren had also already revealed that she was defeated by several other mages. The exact method was unrevealed, but it was obvious that she had some weakness. She just revealed to the others to get through their trial (which is necessary for the main group to get into Imperial lands).

How you somehow try to spin Übel and Clone-boy being not there at the moment into "bad planning" by the writer seems a bit desperate, given that they didn't have to be in the story at all, if the writer didn't want them there.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by ryllharu

Zoltraak is something that Frieren handed to humans

That's Lugner's assumption. It was never confirmed and contradicts Frieren's own statement that humanity researched and reverse-engineered Zoltraak. In fact, humanity's development of Zoltraak is told in history books. The same history book that Fern was too lazy to read.

[Metaneo]

Originally Posted by ryllharu

A character appearing at the Precise moment they're needed to resolve a problem or provide crucial information to resolve the problem that was otherwise not going to be resolved...hmm.

That's the exact definition of one.

This is still not a Deus Ex Machina moment.

For starters, Dunst was the one that info-dumped the information about the clones not having minds, Lawine's contributions do not affect the outcome of the battle against Frieren's clone.

Second, the conversation about getting Edel to penetrate Frieren's mental defenses is anime original, the manga cuts from Fern suggesting she can kill Frieren to Dunst collapsing and saying they don't have minds.


Third, the victory over Clone Frieren isn't solved by either of their contributions, it mitigates potential deaths, Frieren and Fern still have to do the heavy lifting, because again, the notion of bringing anyone other than Frieren and Fern into the battle is anime original.

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

That's Lugner's assumption. It was never confirmed and contradicts Frieren's own statement that humanity researched and reverse-engineered Zoltraak. In fact, humanity's development of Zoltraak is told in history books. The same history book that Fern was too lazy to read.

Someone had to survive Qual's Zoltraak first to teach others about it and Qual killed 70% of all Mages in the area that he was in not 70% of mages who faced him. It's not a stretch to say no mage survived an encounter with him until Frieren's party sealed him.

To say anymore would be waltzing into spoiler territory, so just leave it at that: Frieren contributed to the reverse engineering of Zoltraak.

[Thor's Hammer]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

That's Lugner's assumption. It was never confirmed and contradicts Frieren's own statement that humanity researched and reverse-engineered Zoltraak. In fact, humanity's development of Zoltraak is told in history books. The same history book that Fern was too lazy to read.

Yeah, Lugner wanted to run with the narrative that humanity was handheld by 2 geniuses in Flamme and Frieren since he was so incredibly arrogant.

[ChronoReverse]

re: Deus ex Machina

Why be so pretentious about it if you don't even understand the term? Just because something was unexpected (to you) doesn't make it bad nor does it mean the writer "wrote into a corner".

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Metaneo

It's not a stretch to say no mage survived an encounter with him until Frieren's party sealed him.

It's an assumption without evidence.

Originally Posted by Metaneo

To say anymore would be waltzing into spoiler territory, so just leave it at that: Frieren contributed to the reverse engineering of Zoltraak.

Don't even start. I read the mana too, and I still don't agree with that.

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Metaneo

Second, the conversation about getting Edel to penetrate Frieren's mental defenses is anime original, the manga cuts from Fern suggesting she can kill Frieren to Dunst collapsing and saying they don't have minds.

It is not anime original. The conversation is the exact same as in the manga.

Originally Posted by Metaneo

Third, the victory over Clone Frieren isn't solved by either of their contributions, it mitigates potential deaths, Frieren and Fern still have to do the heavy lifting, because again, the notion of bringing anyone other than Frieren and Fern into the battle is anime original.

Again, not anime original. The lines are exactly the same as in the manga: Denken asks if they'll be fine with just the two of them, and Frieren says it's better this way to minimalize casualties.

The only anime original parts were the fight scenes themselves (honestly, I couldn't tell from the action that Frieren's spells were slower than Zoltraak...)

[TURI123456]

Originally Posted by ryllharu

Humans were handed zoltraak by Frieren to figure out how to counter it. They hadn't really changed it, their development was on the barrier spell. Frieren is explicitly the one who modified it to by default be better at killing demons than Qual originally made it. "Basic" attack magic is "Frieren-modified demon-killing magic."

It's also very difficult to swallow the notion that Frieren is somehow worse at detecting zoltraak because it is "more modern magic than elves are used to," when Frieren has been more involved with humans than most elves, actively training with the very same spell for 80 years, and been gathering new spells constantly for 1000 years.

You will need to forgive me. English isn't my native language so I may be wording things in a bad way.
My meaning is more something like that: Frieren maybe train on Zoltraak for 80. years but it was a short time of her life and she did other things than just train on that spell on the other hand humans mages trained on Zoltraak for most of their lives and specifically because better than her by using this spell. Plus Frieren normally has a defense against Zoltraak it needs special circumstances to use this weakness against her.

[Kanon]

Lawine and Kanne just fighting in the background while the others were busy strategizing cracked me up.

Frieren vs her clone was masterfully animated but the Serie flashback stole the episode. We learned a great deal about her from this conversation alone. She believes magic should only be taught to the talented (checks out with the way she's running things) and although she pretends to be heartless, she clearly cared about Flamme a great deal.

[grecefar]

it was a good plan and I'm pretty sure fern felt good about it lol.

while I do understand were serie is coming from, without the humans there won't so much new spells and magic that even her learned. I think with time she saw that.

[Wandering Soul]

The fight was pretty good and it only makes sense that Fern could both realize what Frieren's weakness was and help come up with a plan to exploit it.

They beat the most dangerous replica, but they still have to stop the rest from meeting up.

[FlareKnight]

I still think the biggest stretch of this episode is that Lawine and Kanne made it that far. Knowing what the monster is and how it works wouldn't remotely help them in actually fighting those replicas. The only thing you can say is that they got absurdly lucky and all the replicas happened to miss them. In an underground space with limited water there's little chance they'd beat any replica that wasn't the double of an absolute pushover. Of course by saying that it's only a stretch not a statistical impossibility.

Still...knowing what they were in for makes it even more absurd that they didn't immediately run over to team up with Frieren and Fern as soon as the test began. They knew there was a chance for a monster duplicate like Frieren to be waiting for them. But to be fair...Lawine and Kanne aren't exactly geniuses . Making bad decisions and needing absurd luck (like getting dropped into Frieren's party in the first test) kind of seems to be their thing.

The fight itself was good. And in function I'd say throwing the flashback with Serie allowed for a punch for the end of the episode. Although honestly I kind of wish they'd thrown the whole flashback before the fight. The fight itself was pretty quick anyways so it felt even shorter with cutting it up with a huge flashback in the middle (well mostly the fight was through).

I get Serie's point of view anyways. Flamme's dream belonged to Flamme. Not obligated to go and boost up humanity just because Flamme asked. And obviously since she told Frieren what she expected, she knew that Serie wasn't all that interested in jumping on that request. A shot in the dark kind of thing. While Serie has certainly helped out a bit, it's only to the degree of tossing a spell at the elite of the elite. Well in theory it's the elite of the elite. If this is the last test then a few "not quite elite" candidates are still going to get the first class mage title.

In the end the plan was rock solid and more people really would have gotten in the way. Frieren vs Frieren is obviously a draw. One would eventually luck into a victory but it could stay even for a while. Even if Fern didn't get a decisive hit that's fine. Any hit would have thrown the copy off for long enough for Frieren to finish the fight. Of course, ideally Fern delivering the finishing blow is what Frieren was hoping to see. Having her apprentice score that kind of win will be great for her confidence. Obviously be tough for Fern to actually kill Frieren in a straight up 1v1. But ambushes are strong and Fern's attacks are fast. That's enough.

Fair enough also that eventually Zoltraak won't be as effective. Right now it's "new" for Frieren and she's not able to instinctively defend it as quickly. But give it a few centuries and she'll probably cut down or eliminate that lag in her reaction. Not that it's a huge problem anyways. Can't be many mages with Fern's speed and even less with the desire to ambush Frieren with it. Obviously if we are looking big picture a spell that exceeds the speed of Zoltraak will be invented and that will be a reaction issue for Frieren, but that's an issue for the future.

I do kind of wonder now that Frieren's "fatal flaw" has been exposed if Fern will work with her on eliminating it? If it's an issue that plagues many new mages then it should be possible to help her deal with that and make her even more impossible to overcome .

Originally Posted by Wandering Soul

The fight was pretty good and it only makes sense that Fern could both realize what Frieren's weakness was and help come up with a plan to exploit it.

They beat the most dangerous replica, but they still have to stop the rest from meeting up.

Yeah all they need to do now is open the door and quickly one-shot the monster . And this test and dungeon will be all cleared.

[deadite]

Why are you doubt Lawine and Kanne's abilities. They are 3rd Class mages. The are 1 class bellow Denken.

[Shadow5YA]

Lawine has prior knowledge of the dungeon layout from her brothers. Richter commented that's it's no wonder why she was able to make it this far.

[ChronoReverse]

Also if you manage to avoid the clones whether by skill in stealth or luck, the dungeon only requires knowledge or experience to get through safely from what we've seen.