You really shouldn’t apply real-world logic to anime.
Summary:
- Demons in Frieren are portrayed as evil monsters who are irredeemable, which upset some fans.
- That used to actually be the norm for fantasy series.
- The demons being evil and pretending to be similar to humans is part of their nature.
The Aura the Guillotine Arc of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (Sousou no Frieren) was somewhat controversial among fans of the series. After all, it elaborated on demons — which ended up being cruel and manipulative creatures that feed on people.
To many, this felt like dehumanizing an entire race — but if you think that, you’re kind of missing the point.
An arc about demons
In the arc, we see Aura the Guillotine — one of the former lieutenants of the Demon King who was defeated by Frieren before. It took her decades until she finally decided to reappear, and in the same arc she was put down for good.
Aura is introduced along with her henchmen, and they initially pretend they want to make peace with the city they’re attacking — only to lower their defense and slaughter everyone. Thankfully, Frieren tells the city’s ruler not to trust the demons, as they’re evil and manipulative by their nature.
How can all of them be evil?
Some fans were noticeably upset with the anime portraying an entire race like that. After all, how can someone be born or created evil? Were there no good demons? Perhaps they’re just misunderstood?
But no, the series time over time showed the viewer that demons are ruthless, cold and dangerous to humans, and it would be unwise to trust them.
People grew too used to fantasy anime subverting expectations about evil races. In many series (especially isekai), we see protagonists interact with supposed monsters, which turn out to be far more civil and reasonable than many humans.
Another somewhat recent series with an entire race of evil creatures was Goblin Slayer — and it was also very controversial (although there were other factors in play for that one).
This is actually the norm for fantasy
Fans tend to forget that a long time ago, it was the norm in fantasy to portray monsters (even humanoid ones) as evil. In classics like Lord of the Rings, we see that all orcs are clearly evil, because they’re created that way. This is also the case for demons in Frieren, of course.
You really shouldn’t apply the real-world logic of racism to fantasy worlds — demons in Frieren are not humans, and they don’t think like humans. They’re introduced as advanced predators who learned to behave like humans to better prey on them.
If you hesitate for a second and consider the possibility of them not being evil, they have already won.