Sousou no Frieren, episode 8
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| Episode | Link |
|---|---|
| 5 | Link |
| 6 | Link |
| 7 | Link |
| 8 | Link |
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The way Demons think in this show is a lot like LLM Chat AIs like ChatGPT work. They don’t really think too much, not in the way humans do, but they excel at producing something that humans approve of. If you don’t probe them too much, they look just like humans. But if you probe too far you see that their behavior is a facade and that their underlying thoughts are not like humans, and they don’t necessarily even understand the words they use to appease humans. What happens when their facade improves? If a demon spent its entire life perfectly acting as a nice and thoughtful human, never causing any harm, would you still call it a monster?
Demons and LLM Chat AIs differ in what their underlying thoughts are. LLM Chat AIs generally want approval. On the other hand, Demons want to survive and eat humans. They use language to manipulate humans and get what they want.
That’s a good analogy - specially because LLMs don’t handle language on a conceptual level, like we do; only the surface, like taxidermy. Demons work a bit different in this aspect because they show cognitive comprehension of what is said, but Frieren herself highlights that they’re just mimicking human behaviour.
I mean, we have that back story with the demon child. It looked like it successfully lived with humans for a good while. But it failed when it killed the mayor to take his daughter. That misunderstanding on it’s part led to every human in the village suddenly turning on them.
If it had not failed there, it could possibly have still been living with the town in peace. Or it would have failed some other way eventually and had to kill everyone.
Episodes like this are why I love this series so much.
Graf acting as a reasonable person in power. Stark being afraid, but still willing to fight. Stark and Fern planning shit out. Fern inheriting her fighting style from Frieren. Flamme protecting a sapling on a whim. All of that so well tied together, in a simple good vs. evil struggle.
Frieren has no chill, Draht’s death was brutal.
It was very enjoyable to see that fight. No useless 10 minutes speech on how she is going to kill him, just straight to the kill.
Great title drop to end the episode. In case you missed it last week, there was a discussion about the translation of the title in the discussion thread for episode 7. Looks like they went with Frieren the Slayer (at least in my subs, sometimes it can vary by region).
Frieren decided to break the number one rule in any D&D party by splitting up. She wanted to go solo the boss to get all the good loot for herself I guess. I am really looking forward to next episode as I remember the confrontation with Aura was one of my favorite confrontations of the manga (though the action is not necessarily my favorite part of Frieren). I don’t remember all the details though as I haven’t gone back and reread this one other than to spot check a thing or two as they have progressed through the adaptation.
though the action is not necessarily my favorite part of Frieren
I’m definitely here more for laid-back chill adventure where i get hit with some heavy emotions every now and then, but I guess a bit of cool action once every couple of episodes is not such a bad thing.
I like that the story mixes things up. It never really seems to lean too much into the laid-back chill, the emotional hits, or the action for very long, before proceeding to something else. I think it works really well for the series and continuing to be an increasingly engaging and interesting story.
I enjoy that too, really feels like a journey.
I find it a little sad that the double entendre of the title was lost in translation. From the beginning I understood the title to refer to Frieren watching her friends pass away of old age. Then this scene comes around and lets us know that 葬送のフリーレン is not just the title of the story; it’s the nickname for Frieren, like The Undertaker or something like that; a name that conveys the destiny of demons that cross Frieren’s path.
it’s the nickname for Frieren
could you elaborate?
I thought 葬送 just means “going to a funeral”. How can this translate to “the undertaker”?
It doesn’t translate to “the undertaker”, I meant that it’s a nickname like “The Undertaker” is a nickname. Or “The Red Baron”, “Jack the Ripper”. That is to say, a nickname that conveys notoriety/fame rather than a nickname for your chums.
From the Demon’s monologue the end of the episode:
“I see. I remember now. It was Frieren. The mage who contributed significantly to humanity’s analysis of Zoltraak and slew more demons than anyone else in history. Frieren the Slayer (葬送のフリーレン). One of the geniuses I despise.”
So we see that in the Crunchyroll translation (and I imagine the translation of the manga as well), 葬送のフリーレン gets 2 translations:
- Title of the show: 葬送のフリーレン ➡️ Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
- Nickname of the character: 葬送のフリーレン ➡️ Frieren the Slayer
oki, thanks
Been a while since I read this part of the manga, but I’m really hyped for the next episode.
Oh no! Another cliffhanger >.>
Kinda wish I had waited until this season was over so I could binge it, I have such little patience, but then I wouldn’t have been able to participate in these discussion threads so I guess it’s not all bad!
For me the painful part is to not babble manga spoilers in this sort of discussion. Like, I know what’s going to happen and I’m excited to talk about it, but… got to wait until the right episode to do so!
I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say we appreciate your restraint lol.
Yeah what I’m looking forward to would require a second season of 24 episodes to reach, but it will be glorious when it does.
I haven’t read the manga and I really hope we get many more episodes after these 24.
