Why is the New Right falling in love with Frieren?

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is a generationally good anime. I’m certain it’ll be remembered years from now with the same fondness as Cowboy Bebop (or in regular TV terms, at worst A Game Of Thrones, if it ends up ending poorly). For those who haven’t seen or read it, Frieren sports a ripe and unique premise: After the big bad villain has already been defeated, how does the world move on from there? When our celebrated heroes break up their party, do they keep in touch? When they grow old, how do they pass on their torches?

Although that’s really just the backdrop to the show’s emotional core, which interrogates the question of how to live with grief and posits that we should never give up on love (whether familial or romantic). Maybe “connection” is a better word than love. The titular character Frieren finds it easy to avoid forming connections, because she’s an undying elf for whom entire decades can pass with barely any notice, an introvert happy to perpetually obsess over her hobby (which is the collection of obscure and useless spells). Aging and death are things that happen to other people, and she’s always been a step removed from other people, and so has never been affected by grief or longing—until now.

Recruited into the party that saved the world, she learned what it is to make friends. Now seventy years later, she’s thrust into a new party and becomes mother-figure for two kids (the sorcerous purple-hair Fern and the warrior-who-can-take-a-beating Stark). It’s what the videogame journalist Yahtzee would describe as a “hairy dad” tale, involving the aloof parent who grows their relationship with a new or estranged child, and whose cold heart slowly thaws over the course of the story, but with a “tiny-but-fierce mom” in place of a dad. It’s a tale, then, all about learning to become more emotionally aware and empathetic.

So why would this show appeal to Rightwingers who loudly denounce the value of empathy?

Part of the show’s appeal is its slice-of-life cozy feeling; many episodes will have our trio of heroes show up at a village with growling stomachs and an ever-depleting count of gold, so they’ll earn their keep by slaying nearby monsters or helping villagers with any odd old errand—like fixing bridges and wagons, or even gardening and cleaning. But the show has its dramatic arcs as well, like the excellent arc in which mages compete to achieve top-tier certifications from the “Continental Magic Association”, Frieren brushes shoulders with an old frenemy, and Fern grows more self-confident, independent, and magically adept.

And then there’s the arcs we have to talk about (sigh), the ones about fighting demons.

Generally, the show is at its weakest when focused on demon-killing. (Some background: The worst of the worst was already defeated, but many demons still remain to be vanquished, especially in farther-out frontier regions.) Frieren shares the expositional problem that has plagued many an anime: Instead of carefully and cleverly demonstrating the specifics of its magic system over time, building audiences’ knowledge in advance of magical conflicts that will require understanding in order to appreciate what’s happening, the show instead interrupts every fight with lengthy expositional monologues. Combatants diegetically waste time explaining the nuances of their powers, robbing these scenes of tension while the audience waits for our heroes’ eventual and inevitable victory.

The demons themselves are more interesting than their action sequences, but only marginally. They’re consistently portrayed as manipulative, soulless enemies of humanity, capable of acting in loving ways, but only in deceit, completely incapable of understanding love themselves. Even the most innocent-looking child demon will still gladly feast on your flesh. Their presence adds some nuance to the show’s primary theme: Empathy is good, but not without limits. Extending empathy to those entirely lacking empathy will only serve to get you killed.

“Empathy will only get you killed” does start to sound like a Rightwing talking point. (“There’s so much empathy that you actually suicide yourself. So that—we’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on,” says Elon Musk.) The following is a quote from Christian Heiens, a YouTuber whose video was shared with me by here on Substack (with 3k subscribers and a top rising spot in the World Politics category).

Frieren is as close to being explicitly Right-wing as any anime possibly could be…

In one of the most memorable scenes of the first season, Frieren’s party encounters a demon that has taken the form of a young girl… The human hero of this party, Himmel, simply can’t bring himself to strike this demon down, even after it had just murdered and eaten another child. From Himmel’s perspective, all that he sees is a small and frightened girl, not a monster with no compassion for its victims. And so he just can’t do it. What happens next is that the village chieftain steps forward and offers to take the demon in as one of his own. He basically promises to raise it as a human and to show it love and compassion. But in doing so, he’s playing right into the demon’s hands. It has no interest in integrating into human society or reforming itself along humanity’s moral order. All it’s interested in is manipulating the emotions and principles of the humans around it in order to continue killing. And so, tragically, the same principles that drove this family to open up their home ultimately result in the village chieftain being killed, his homestead burned to the ground, and his daughter nearly suffering the same fate as the first child that Himmel failed to avenge.

It surprised me to hear Heiens describe this scene as memorable, when it wasn’t for me. Though I can imagine why it might’ve struck a chord, considering that some conservatives sincerely believe that Leftwingers are demons (e.g. see ) who use empathy as a duplicitous tool to seize power and attempt to literally destroy Rightwingers: killing their way of life, their livelihoods, and in cases like Charlie Kirk, their lives.

Let me be clear: We don’t want any of that. I, and everyone I’ve known, want every American on either side of the aisle to be happy, stably employed, healthy and safe (exceptions to be made only for the most hateful, dangerous or criminal few—and even in those cases, I support the rule of law and incarceration, not assassination!!).

For me, the above scene was an unsuccessful attempt to drum up drama and heighten stakes, undermined by Himmel’s unexplained ignorance regarding the nature of demons. For someone who’s ever been targeted by the toxic extreme of wokeism (not just on the Right, but also moderates like Nathan Cofnas, Scott Alexander, and at least one person I know personally), I can see how the demons’ hypocritical weaponization of “empathy” would seem far more true to life and therefore far more narratively compelling.

I don’t know how many on the Right believe that Leftwingers are demons. It’s a type of thinking that concerns me, dehumanization that if ever made ubiquitous could only lead to civil war. But it’s also a type of thinking I’ve seen before…

…on the Left.

I’ve seen many Far Leftists and queer and trans folk online who believe the Right is literally trying to exterminate them. Because it’s true: There ARE Rightwingers who’d like to exterminate them. This leads to demonization of the Rightist enemy, which leads to things like cheering after the death of Charlie Kirk, which leads to New Rightwingers who believe the Left is literally trying to exterminate them, which leads to demonization of the Leftist enemy, which snowballs in an endless feedback loop, without beginning or end, and empathy forever forgotten.

But I don’t believe in giving up, even when battling these polarizing forces can feel like a Sisyphean task. So this post represents an attempt, however meager, to counteract that feedback loop and emphasize that which I wish was already obvious: We don’t need a civil war. 99% of American Leftists don’t want to see Rightists literally murdered, and 99% of Rightists don’t want to see Leftists literally murdered. Unfortunately, it’s the 1% of extremists who get most loudly amplified by Twitter, and it’s them we must renounce most strongly. The paradox of tolerance is always going to be tricky to navigate, but we can try to learn from Frieren and demonize only those who excessively demonize others, while strengthening our connections and our empathy for everyone else, be they man, elf, or dwarf; be they Left, Right, independent or otherwise.

The election is this Tuesday. Whatever you believe and whoever you support, don’t forget to go vote! (I did my mail-in ballot already.) Thanks to Copernican for hearing me out, despite our differences.

Thanks for reading Rambling After! This post is public so feel free to share it.

The one-dimensional nature of the demons’ villainy makes them less interesting than, say, the killer robots (Cylons) of Battlestar: Galactica. In Frieren, demons rarely perform well at passing for human or passing for good. Cylons, on the other hand, could adopt any human form perfectly and act as sleeper agents. The protagonists of Battlestar were far more paranoid about betrayal, but at the same time more hopeful about the prospect of achieving peace. That’s because Cylons were also people, with individual feelings, differing views about humanity, and the capacity for empathy (even if selectively applied).

I tend to have little patience for characters (e.g. Daredevil) who refuse to take lethal measures even when extremely justified, so for me the scene was a mild, passing annoyance.

How in the seven hells are zero tolerance policies empathetic?