Frieren; A Candid Look At Immortality

How does one accurately describe time? While we may have units of measurement that help us describe the passage of it, as a species, we honestly have nothing that helps our perception of it. Time is something that is truly beyond our scope of comprehension. After all, how can an animal that lives up to 125 years at most understand what it's like to exist for 500 years, for 1000 years, or for 10,000 years?

While immortality is oftentimes romanticized and coveted. The downfalls of longevity are, for the most part, blatantly overlooked. Maybe this is because we, as a species, understand that our concept of immortality is impossible to achieve. In the future, we may be able to find a way that allows our consciousness to live far beyond our meat suits. There is nothing we can do to ensure we see the end of time in the body we were born with.

While some species in nature achieve unimaginably long lifespans, some are even technically immortal. Immortality has never graced a sapient species. But that begs the question: if a sapient being could achieve immortality, how would they see the world? And more importantly, how would they function in relation to it?

The Journey’s End and a Reflection of Time

From the very beginning, Madhouse treated Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End with a lot of love. The first four episodes were aired back-to-back to serve as a prologue to the main story. The story begins as the hero's party (which is comprised of the elven mage Frieren, the dwarf Eisen, the human priest Heiter, and the hero Himmel) go their separate ways.

While we are not shown the events that took place over the decade that this group spent together, during their goodbye, it becomes immediately clear that while most of the group cherishes the time that just passed, Frieren thinks little of it. While her party reminisces, she bluntly states that the journey took a mere ten years. It is important to note that while her dismissive attitude may come off as abrasive, her tone and cadence reflect no hostility.

For humans, a decade is a long time, especially if we assume that in their world the average lifespan also mirrors ours, which is an average of 80 years. The span of a decade is nothing to scoff at. While dwarves live longer, ten years is also not lost on them. But for Frieren, this amount of time is so insignificant that it doesn't even warrant a footnote.

In a beautiful moment of subtext, as the part bids farewell, a meteor shower lights up the sky overhead. This is a wonderful little nod to show that human life comes, shines brightly for a very short time, and then disappears. Here, Frieren's inability to comprehend short amounts of time once again becomes the focus of the scene when she mentions that she knows a better spot to view this phenomenon, and in fifty years she'll return to take her companions to that spot. It's easy to see the discomfort in the group at this remark; after all, by this time, both Himmer and Heiter are in their 20s. Add 50 years to their own lives, and both of them know that by that time if they're lucky, they'll have only vestiges of life left.

When the time comes for their reunion, we see firsthand how the passage of time can affect some people. While Heiter and Eisen have retained most of their looks, the great hero Himmel has long succumbed to the ills of old age and has become a derelict old man. After some reminiscing and upon concluding their final journey together, Himmel effectively gives up the ghost.

At Himmel's funeral for the first time, we see a visceral show of emotion on Frieren’s part. She laments not having taken the time to know her deceased companion in a more in-depth manner. And as the group once again bids farewell, Heiter jokes about his own mortality, causing deeper introspection on her part. Frieren then tries to persuade Eisen to travel with her, as she intends to learn more about humans, but he mentions that with his age, he'd only slow down. As another time skip occurs (this time 20 years), Frieren and Heiter are reunited once more, up until his death, gaining a new companion along the way.

An inability to understand does not equal a failure to understand.

As a society, we tend to conflate ideas that are, in all honesty, not intertwined. For example, a common fallacy is believing that failure and inability are one and the same.

Failure translates to trying to do something but being unsuccessful. To attempt it, there needs to be an understanding of the matter that you are trying to accomplish. On the other hand, being unable to do something means you cannot even attempt it. Think of it this way: there is a flag on the top of a difficult-to-scale hill. Person A, someone who has mountaineering knowledge, tries to reach the flag but, due to inclement weather, is unable to reach it; this person has failed to do so. Person B, on the other hand, has no formal training in mountaineering and, to add to this has health issues that prevent them from trying to summit the hill. This person did not fail at getting the flag; they are unable to do so. An attempt cannot even be made.

In this story, that distinction is of the utmost importance, as Frieren does not fail at understanding her companions and how they view their own time, but she's unable to do so. For a being that can exist until an external factor removes it from the equation of existence, the passage of a year, a decade, and even a century is inconsequential.

A quest to fill time...

Even the most exciting thing, once repeated, becomes dull and lackluster. The need to keep ourselves entertained permeates so much of life that billion-dollar industries are built to satiate this exact need. Now imagine trying to fill the void of time if you had a hundred more years in your earthly coil, then add a hundred more, and another hundred. Quickly, this becomes problematic. Luckily, for some of us, getting lost in a hobby can quickly become a rabbit hole, and the more inquisitive of us will keep on digging no matter how much time we're given.

Frieren, to begin with, all the time in the world does exactly this. With an endless abundance of time, she dedicates her time to collecting magical spells. The usefulness or practicality of these are irrelevant. All it is is just a way to kill time while devoting oneself to something they love. This may seem like a mundane or even irrelevant aspect, but as a way to pass the time, a few better ways exist.

With extreme age comes extreme hostility.

Repeated exposure to anything has varied effects on people. What initially can be a point of absolute importance can quickly be relegated to an afterthought or just a part of life. Likewise, the opposite is also true. Repeated exposure to something one finds distasteful can drastically change someone to the point of radicalization. The longer the exposure period to something one finds reprehensible, the more one vilifies it, and the greater the animosity that builds due to it.

This is something that seems to be completely absent in the representation of long-lived beings, but with Frieren, we brazenly see this hate. Her rancor towards demons is so strong that, without hesitation, she would open fire on one in the middle of a crowded settlement. While it can be accurately said that given her own experiences during her childhood and as a part of the Hero's Party, this hatred is warranted, one is still able to see the extremes of this behavior due to the longevity of the animosity she bears.

To what end?

For watchers who are caught up with the anime and eagerly tune in each week to see Frieren's current journey to Aureole, one may ask what exactly can be gained from what she is trying to accomplish. Well, anyone who has lost someone near and dear to them would probably sell off a part of their soul to talk to them again, but there's more to it than just sentimentality or closure. Some parts of yourself can only be understood by facing uncomfortable or painful moments. Likewise, gaining a deeper understanding of someone can only be achieved by openly talking with them.

At the beginning of the story, Himmel states that his enthrallment with statues is less egotistical and more of a way to comfort Frieren after they are gone. After all, if something is set in stone, it's probably going to serve as a long reminder of what once was. While Frieren herself was not aware of it as yet, this was a beautiful little gesture to grant her some comfort as she later on tries to grasp something that will be quite the challenge for her to understand.

Frieren; A Candid Look At Immortality

The Journey’s End and a Reflection of Time

A quest to fill time...

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