this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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It's fantasy.
Not every villain needs to have a complex backstory for why they're sympathetic and actually human. Great example: the Disney Cruella remake. The character is more fun as a literal human demon who wants to make a dog skin coat. She doesn't need to be a humanized person.
Obviously when tropes combine (looking at JKR and the goblin bankers) that's a different thing. But the fact that many of the Demons are ATTRACTIVE is part of why we should recognize them as (if anything) analogs to fascists.
To think through this: is it "problematic" that certain creatures in nature use aesthetically pleasing colors to trap prey? Is this somehow something we should "humanize" rather than recognize the cold calculation of nature at work (and perhaps, as communists/marxists, work to fight against the logic of nature and fascism's evil cooption of it. After all, don't we believe that men make history, but not as they please, and thus are beyond mere "nature").
The key difference between the fash cooption and the reality of the story is that the demons are not human. They're angler fish/carnivorous plants that use language. This idiot's take (the OP image) obviously assumes the inhumanity of his subjects and that's all you have to do to undermine every Frieren bad take. Simply put, the real "analogy" is if you went to go make friends with a starving tiger in the wild. It doesn't see its actions as good or bad - it's "beyond" good and evil not because they're niezschean ubermensch but because they're simply nonhuman. Now, this doesn't mean we should kill every nonhuman entity in the world (though cattle ranchers would do so with wolves, evil fucks). We can recognize ecosystems and our role in it. But it's a fantasy story, and should be taken on its own terms until it gives reason not to (and again, if every demon started looking like a JKR goblin or something, then I would immediately reverse my position).
Always evil races, or armies of questionally sapient drones that act as convenient meat waves for the protagonists to cut down are worth scrutinizing and critiquing even if their narrative purpose (being convenient meat waves for combat set pieces) is obvious enough.
However, in those examples, orcs, goblins, bugs, darkspawn, what have you, the protagonists generally aren't in the situation of being presented with their child forms and having to kill them. Again, because their purpose is threatening armies. They're often even born as adults for this purpose.
Frieren is the one that looks directly into the camera and says No, you Must kill the child. Sympathizing or showing mercy is the wrong choice, you Must snuff them out wherever you find them, because they will grow up to be dangerous and subversive No Matter What because that is their nature
and I don't think they had to do that. and yeah that's much closer to fascist propaganda than it is Tolkien orcs
I mean, that's one reason among other very problematic ones that I didn't watch goblin slayer.
"It's not ~~pedophilia~~ genocide because the child is actually a 1000 year old demon"
That is the dialectic. The story as presented is actually alien to us because demons are not real. So we interpret it through the lens of extant reality and while it is intresting it doesn't actually fit in our frameworks and falls appart.
It's fantasy. Ontologically evil creatures can exist.
It would be like if the utility monster were real. Does that mean we should accept it under human ethics? It's a sentient being, so we need to accept it's claim to our unhappiness?
Putting it another way, maybe we shouldn't try to use absurd thought experiments with morality.
Nobody is disputing that it's possible to create a fictional work in which ontologically evil creatures exist. I'm saying that putting such creatures in a work inherently aligns it with fascist ideology because the idea is a core pillar of fascism. You want to stop at "it's fantasy" without considering the question of "but what is the fantasy?" What is the answer in this case if not "to be able to commit genocide without feeling bad about it"?
Other possible answers:
Still the issue is that this is all interpretive! There's no necessity for a narrative where a particular group is annihilated must be fascist.
I should note here that the annihilation of a class (in real life) need not be deadly (separating killing from violence). But would not the fantasy of exterminating capital owners (those with high magical power) slot in equally well? Again to be fully clear - in our little metaphor there's no need to kill the child (the Chinese proved this). But, to torture the metaphor, if a former child of a billionaire backslid on their reeducation, wouldn't more forceful measures be necessary?
However again, this is all kind of moot - the fantasy of annihilating the powerful doesn't necessarily have to be fascist, classist, or anything in particular. We can leverage interpretations however we wish. What's important is that we take up the fight against just saying "yeah it's fash" without the author either coming out as fash or more complete proof (especially since there's plenty of good shit in the story that aligns with left politics). Why cede the ground so easily when the leap the fascists make (e.g. it works because my opponents aren't human) is one that even the most libbed up idiot would disagree with. Simply pointing out the demons are closer to the aliens from independence day goes a long way to diffusing the fash critique. This doesn't mean it's perfect but it's like, again, make them show that they really don't see their enemies as human. Revealing the fascist as a fascist against the text seems way more useful than writing the text off. They aren't worth capitulating too (they like starship troopers for the wrong reasons after all)