moonarchia
The Scientific Shitlord
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Frieren loves Flamme. Seeing how Serie treated Flamme would rub her the wrong way.
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Winter 2024 Anime Thread
- Thread starter Xarpolis
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Xexx
Vyemm Raider
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The fluctuation thing had me confused and kinda still does, if she was compressing wouldnt it suddenly enlarge, and not shrink momentarily? Maybe i need to rewatch but it looked like the mana had shrunk for a brief second.
Yeah reddit thread had some with similar thoughts -
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Gurgeh
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Xarpolis
Life's a Dream
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From my own understanding of fluctuating, I believe Fern has very strong sense of mana detection. Stronger even than most demons. She's seeing the fluctuations in Serie's mana emission, proving that she also withholds her mana like Frieren does.
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Gurgeh
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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I'm on board with the.people saying she isn't withholding but faking insanely high mana.
After all, she wasn't a match for the Demon, she cannot be significantly more powerful than Frieren, she's even possibly weaker in combat.
Gavinmad
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Frieren basically spent 900 years living as a hermit and Flamme never said Serie "wasn't a match" for the Demon King.
S: Flamme, this girl is no good after all. She lacks a burning ambition.
Fl: Master, some day this girl will defeat the Demon King. It will be a mage like her who clears the way to a peaceful era.
S: Are you saying I cannot?
Fl: As one who seeks battle, you cannot kill the Demon King. We can't do it. After all, you can't imagine yourself living in a peaceful era, can you? Frieren is a mage of a peaceful era.
It has nothing to do with power levels, Flamme was saying it's a mental thing similar to how Sense is no match for Ubel despite being far more powerful and experienced.
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Xarpolis
Life's a Dream
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I didn't think about it that way, but now that you've brought it to light, I agree with you. I still think Serie was sealing her mana, but I could easily be wrong about that. The earlier comment about her artificially increasing her mana instead also makes sense, but so does the fact that she (at her core) is a stronger mage than Frieren, Hmm... I'll see what autistic Reddit comes up with.
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moonarchia
The Scientific Shitlord
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Serie is much older than Frieren. They already stated last season that the longer a mage lives the larger their mana pool grows.
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I think Serie is just concealing part of her mana. Yes her mana is pretty impressive, but remember when Frieren let hers go against aura? Seems like comparatively, Serie who spent her whole life developing her magic, on top of the fact she is older than Frieren, should have a much larger mana aura around her than what she has now, as impressive as it is already.
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Daidraco
Avatar of War Slayer
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I agree with this.
As large as her magic aura is now, Fern seeing fluctuations just makes me think that Serie is a fucking "God" among children in comparison. I feel like she takes on humans as apprentices and that somehow relates to the size of her mana's aura. I'm inclined to say that this is because she feels as though they learn faster, since at least 2 episodes have been about Frieren just dicking off in places for decades without a moments notice. But it could be a soft spot because their life expectancy is so low. Or that since shes a war mage, that Humans have a tendency to be a war mage as well. Looking forward to the next episode to get a bit more information on it all, definitely.
Its definitely a lot to put together without having the ultimate answer from the writer. But something so minor, being a mystery that spurs this much discussion, just once again shows how great the show is.
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Furry
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I got the impression that Serie was concealing part of her mana too. I mean, of course she's a lot stronger than frieren, and I get the impression that frieren was basically just the demon king's achilles heal. Serie articulates the benefit of hiding your magic. That, along with the fact that she is open to change and advancement in magic, and her monologue earlier in the episode about hiding magic point to a change in heart some time after the demon king died.
That, or shes just a total fraudster and has been using magic to increase her aura for thousands of years. That'd be a bit dumb for this show I think, though.
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Xexx
Vyemm Raider
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If she was concealing her mana it would fluctuate to be larger not smaller - Serie spent all her time collecting and making spells - Frieren spent all her time learning mana control - So yeah i dont agree with her "sealing" her mana and it fluctuating to be "smaller". If she was going to fluctuate it would suddenly expand into something ungodly - but instead it shrank to something far smaller. Furthermore has this story established something about elven mana growing over time anyways to make us think Serie mana has been accumulating into something larger? All she does is sit around and didnt even fight the Demon King.
Yes, it's not Elven mana specifically though, it is just the way mana works for everyone.
In the confrontation with Aura, Aura says: 'You may be a great mage, but your mana is unimpressive. At most you have only a hundred years of training. On top of that you haven't changed much in the last 80 years, either you're working on other skills beside magic, or you've just been lazing away the entire time"
The implication being that training magic increases your mana in proportion to the amount of training you do.
On finding out that Frieren was hiding her mana, Aura says it doesn't matter because she is still 500 years old and there is no way Frieren can beat her, which is followed up with Frieren revealing that she is over a thousand years old and showing that her amount of mana is much greater than Aura's.
The implication being that training magic increases your mana in proportion to the amount of training you do.
On finding out that Frieren was hiding her mana, Aura says it doesn't matter because she is still 500 years old and there is no way Frieren can beat her, which is followed up with Frieren revealing that she is over a thousand years old and showing that her amount of mana is much greater than Aura's.
The 'fluctuations' are also called out specifically as a side effect of limiting your mana. It's not impossible that you'd also get them trying to do the opposite (if that were even possible), but there's nothing to support that so far.
Serie was also an established archmage before Frieren was even born, her limiting her mana to Frieren's level makes more sense than the inverse, especially given Serie doesn't respect Frieren because she considers her a filthy casual who doesn't take magic seriously.
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Xexx
Vyemm Raider
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To expand on my earlier thoughts - Serie said she spent all that time with the geezer but in all his years he never noticed something while with her. She made this comment after he commented on how much mana she has iirc. Later on she mentioned that she finally found someone who notices. Fern wasnt scared, just that she noticed it fluctuated, and in the glimpse shown, it shrank. Fern could tell with Frieren who's mana doesnt really show has a gap she can exploit due to her perception of that. If everything said or hinted in that episode is to be followed starting with the comments in the throne room, then it would lead to it being the very opposite of Frieren.
I feel she can force it to seem like her mana is vast and expansive through some method. I initially thought she'd found some way to burn a very minute of lifeforce to force her mana to be larger than it really is, but it has a very slight fluctuation that hardly anyone has ever noticed. It would make sense as no one is able to tell that Fern is hiding 99% of hers.
I feel she can force it to seem like her mana is vast and expansive through some method. I initially thought she'd found some way to burn a very minute of lifeforce to force her mana to be larger than it really is, but it has a very slight fluctuation that hardly anyone has ever noticed. It would make sense as no one is able to tell that Fern is hiding 99% of hers.
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zzeris
The Real Benny Johnson
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Serie has far more mana than Frieren, she's much older being from the 'Mythical Age', learned more things, practiced longer, etc, etc. Anyone that has read the manga knows she's considered the strongest mage. Frieren beat the Demon King and is incredibly strong...but Serie is stronger. No one but Fern has ever noticed Serie's mana fluctuates including the First-Class mage Serie always has around her. He did notice Frieren's mana fluctuates.