In the first half of the episode, Frieren and company are hired to once again polish a hero’s statue. Naturally, we assume that it’s another statue of Himmel. After all, they did go on a 10-year journey, and Himmel saved a whole lot of people. It just makes sense. At the same time, however, I can’t help but wonder if they ever failed, and if they did, how often? That’s probably not the sort of thing Frieren wants to remember, but failures due tend to feel more… hm, vibrant in our memories? Maybe that’s not the right way to phrase it. Still, it might be a nice change of pace to see that the party doesn’t always succeed. So far, most of their “failures” have had a positive spin. For instance, them running away from danger in last week’s episode. Or when Himmel failed to pull out the hero’s sword. The only time I feel like they’ve truly failed was when they allowed that demon child to survive a little longer than necessary and thus take an extra life.

But wait, that’s not Himmel. Talk about a change of pace, just in a different sort of way. Frieren proceeds to give the kiddies (and us) a history lesson. Many people took up arms to try and save humanity, and this statue celebrates one of them. The man was none other than the Hero of the South, because even though he died in battle, he still managed to take down three of the seven Sages of Destruction. Or so we’re told. This is when Frieren starts recollecting. Apparently, the Hero of the South had tried to recruit her even though he knew he couldn’t. The man claimed to be able to see the future, so he already knew ahead of time that he would die against the seven Sages of Destruction. He even knew that another hero would come along later and successfully recruit Frieren — that this hero would be the one to truly save the world from the Demon King.

Eh, I’m personally not a fan of having my future set in stone, so I hope the Hero of the South just had really, really accurate predictions. Take Frieren’s recruitment for instance. Why did he bother asking her if he already knew she wouldn’t join him? What was the point? Before he left, the Hero of the South even added that Himmel would change Frieren’s life. But if our future has already been decided for us, then nothing changed. What happened later was always going to happened. Who’s to say that your emotions are even yours to control? It has already decided how you will feel. If you want to tell me that this is not how it works, then why? Why are some things set in stone and others not? But I should probably move on from this, because I don’t want to get into cause and effect, determinism, and all that jazz. I’m just reiterating that I’m not a fan of any plot device that involves seeing an immutable future. For certain viewers, this scene is probably meant to give them shivers or whatever. But I think real life fortune tellers are charlatans, and this is unfortunately coloring my experience of this portion of the episode. Frieren kinda teases the man in memoriam, but only because he thought he would be forgotten in history’s weave. But instead, he is still celebrated to this day. I guess he couldn’t see that future.

In the second half of the episode, we move right along to a new city, but for once, Frieren doesn’t want to linger. For once, she understands that time is finite, and she’s thus in a hurry. As you can imagine, Fern and Stark find this very strange. Well, as it turns out, not only is the future set in stone, time is also a flat circle. All those years ago, Frieren and her party had helped a tyrannical man recover a stolen sword from a demon. Fast forward to the present where Frieren once again has to accept the same request from that same man’s great-grandson. Somehow, this sword just keeps getting stolen over and over. Frieren was trying to hurry the kiddos through the city to avoid this repeatable quest. Alas, the future is immutable!

Frieren says she accepted the quest because she didn’t want Himmel’s efforts to go to waste. Do you notice how she always attributes everything to Himmel even though the whole party was there the last time she was on this quest? C’mon, throw Heiter and Eisen a bone or two. Anyway, I don’t suppose there’s a spell for tracking down lost swords, is there? Well, even if it does exist, the owner would probably have to be the one casting the spell. So instead, we get to see our trio play detectives by traveling to and fro, gathering information from the locals. Eventually, the quest takes them to a recently destroyed village, and the story turns dark. They find a hooded woman who claims to be a traveling priestess. She then tells them that a sword demon had destroyed the village. How would she know? She knows, because she is predictably the sword demon.

I’ve probably said this elsewhere, but I’m not a big fan of how this series handles demons. I just don’t like the thought of an entire race being wholly irredeemable. Yeah, yeah, demons are abandoned as babies, so they don’t understand love or whatever. But what does that really mean, though? If we were to adopt a newborn demon, can we in theory nurture them into a wholesome adult? We’ve seen one example of a demon child still taking a life after it has been shown love and care. You don’t need me to tell you how this is an incredibly small sample size, how the family was too reckless in taking her in, how you can’t really assess the rehabilitation effort in such a short amount of time, etc. Nevertheless, I’ve seen a few people’s reactions to how demons are presented in Frieren, and they tend to find it “refreshing.” After all, a lot of stories predictably pull the “both sides” card, and thus portray the bad guys as simply being misunderstood or whatever. I get it, you want something different from the usual. But it’s so bizarre for an entire race or species to be unrepentantly evil. That just doesn’t happen except in fiction. And I suppose I lean away from this sort of thing, because it’s a dangerous thought to entertain — it’s a dangerous thought to paint huge swaths of people as nothing but evil incarnate. But I suppose that’s why they’re called demons; we don’t have to think of them as people.

Anyway, as both sides do battle, the animation is gorgeous, but again, you don’t need me to tell you that. Ultimately, Stark and Fern distract the sword demon long enough for Frieren to vaporize her in a single blast. We then see a flashback where Himmel revealed why he always took on these difficult quests: you end up aiding a lot of people in the long run. I guess so. I mean, if the present party hadn’t taken out the lady demon, she probably would’ve moved onto slaying and eating other villages. It’s just too bad that her nature is completely immutable — that she simply cannot imagine eating anything but humans. But this is the world that Frieren inhabits. It’s a world full of intelligent and yet somehow wholly unreasonable demons.

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Stray thoughts & observations:

• Damn, this season will only have ten episodes? Why so little? Oh well, quality over quantity.
• Assuming that memories work the same way here as they do in real life, they can only be unreliable. When you remember something, it’s your neurons firing in a unique pattern specific to the memory you’re trying to recall. But it isn’t out of the question for said unique pattern to evolve or be slightly tweaked. People forget things all the time. Sometimes, people remember events that never even happened to them. But Frieren is high fantasy, so who can really say how a 1000-year old elf brain works? Maybe her neurons are simply better than ours.
• When we see the Hero of the South clash against the Sages of Destruction, what exactly are we seeing? A flashback of the actual event itself? Or a dramatic reenactment in Frieren’s mind? ‘Cause I mean, if it really went down like that, how did one man manage to kill three of them when the Sages of Destruction were all fighting him at once? So y’see, I’m inclined to think that this is just a dramatic reenactment. Not to throw shade on a dead (fictional) person, but it just seems kinda ludicrous.
• People will call him a hero, because he didn’t even try to run from his fate. But it’s called fate. How would he have run from it? What does it mean to be a hero if your life is on rails? It’s not like he could’ve chosen not to fight and die to the Sages of Destruction. Do labels like hero and villain even matter if you don’t have a choice?
• Eh, pass on Frieren’s reward. I have a backscratcher for this specific reason. I wouldn’t waste my mana on something that any stick can handle.
• I guess being the only front-liner means you gotta carry everything for the party.
• Ah, don’t tempt me to get a steak for tonight’s dinner. They’re so expensive nowadays.
• What an uncomfortable close-up of some random horse.
• Maybe Stark needs better bait.
• Frieren reveals that she struck first, because she knew Fern was about to pray. She reasons that this is why the demon had disguised herself as a priestess. Again, the demons here are so intelligent and cunning that they understand and manipulate human behavior. But they can never be redeemed? I’m just incredulous. But whatever, this is the price I have to pay in order to enjoy this show, I guess.
• The great-grandson seems a lot more reasonable and friendly than his ancestor. Human nature is mutable. Just not demon nature.
• If the sword keeps getting stolen, why not get rid of it? Frieren argues that you can’t let it fall into the hands of a demon. She then waxes poetic about how protecting the sword is now a responsibility of the entire city. Uh, sure, but why not get rid rid of it? Y’know, destroy it. I guess we just have to assume that they can’t. There’s no Mount Doom to throw the sword into.
• All that work for a spell that changes the color of apples. Woo.
• Some people might read this post and think I hated the episode or even the series in general. No, I enjoyed it. And relative to other shows this season, Frieren is still easily in the top three. But if I have quibbles, then I’m gonna talk about them.