Never get between online leftists and their treats. Scratch a lib and a fascist bleeds; scratch a online leftist’s favorite media and a lib bleeds.
This fictional concept of a “ontological evil” species is obviously not supported by any real-world “ontological” basis. The application of “evil” as an exonym to appellate against external cultures or races has had monstrous historical and present-day consequences. The unfalsifiable idea that a certain race or culture is merely pretending to be civilized and sentient “while in reality, as we all know wink wink they are actually evil and un-persons” has such an abundance of parallels to historical racial discourse, genocide and prejudice that it’s comical and unsettling in equal measure that people would use it as apologia for their fictional media.
I said this years ago in a discussion about Tolkien (a racist POS) and his characterization of the orcs:
It’s very interesting that fantasy, starting with Tolkien in the mid 20th century, rather than casting off the racist tradition of racial caricaturization (that authors could no longer get away with applying to real world peoples, as an outdated and monstrous way of perceiving “other” peoples), simply continued it within the confines of “fictionalized” races (which conveniently have a massive spoonful of real world racial coding embedded, as Tolkien admitted).
It fucking seems like it! You’re allowed to like your elf show goddamn, I’m trying to explain why people have issue with it! I love some slop that has easy to recognize problematic shit, I’m just tired of this particular trope - whether or not the author of Frieren is all in on xenophobic othering or not is immaterial to me. Or at least, it is secondary.
The demons just being an entire species that’s just intrinsically Fascist is a bit weird, instead of it being the result of ideology or something men choose to become out of self-interest, but conflating “this group of powerful and heavily armed imperial colonialists is intrinsically wrapped up in a hyper-elitist, racial supremacist warrior cult ethos that says that might makes right and who gleefully prey upon those weaker than themselves” with real world imperial settler colonialist narratives about how subjugated peoples were actually inherently inferior and immoral and needed to be chastised and controlled is a stretch.
If anything the demons are “what if American/Anglo soldiers and leaders were some kind of magical fey creature who could just sprout guns and bombs from their bodies at will and that they just did colonialism because they suck?” which is still weird and fails to really engage with why imperialists are like that, but lines up way more with jokes about Anglos being ontologically evil than with any historic racist logic; it is the oppressed looking at their violent oppressor and declaring that they are evil for what they are doing, only failing in that this is made to be some intrinsic trait rather than the result of a cruel and supremacist ideology and material self-interest.
This seems like “what if ‘Birth of a Nation’ could be narratively reclaimed somehow as a film celebrating black liberation and condemning white supremacy” territory of discourse. I’m not interested in it because it’s plainly not how the majority of people would reasonably see it and that’s the only thing that matters in a consequentialist media analysis. The author’s intention, whether they somehow actually intended this to be a 500 IQ veiled critique against the bourgeoisie, are irrelevant. Most people see the “demons” in the same uncritical and unambiguous light as they see every DnD “ontologically evil,” which DnD itself lifted from Tolkien.
This confusion seems to appear because people hardly ever actually take a look at the rhetorical structure of that kind of racial and intercultural discourse. There’s two levels. There’s the level at ontology, which is that “this external group is weak and inferior and deserves to be taken advantage of by us.” Then there’s the level at epistemology, which that “this external group is a bunch of bloodthirsty savages because they only know violence and are the actual aggressors.” This is actually the definition of fascism as laid out by Umberto Eco, which is that “the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.” In real terms, they are weak (which justifies attacking them on a material basis), but in cognitive terms, they are strong (which justifies attacking them on a ideological basis, as it would be an act of bravery and heroism).
Take a look at the American Declaration of Independence. It doesn’t say “the ‘Indians’ are weak and therefore their inferiority justifies our conquest of their lands,” it frames the case against them in the exact precise terms you’ve laid out, where all the characteristics and qualities of the aggressor are projected upon their victim: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
This seems like “what if ‘Birth of a Nation’ could be narratively reclaimed somehow as a film celebrating black liberation and condemning white supremacy” territory of discourse.
“This story with a multiracial central cast that’s principally about valuing human connections and placing mundane good deeds above any sort of martial accomplishment, which is held in contempt as something cruel and tragic, with antagonists that are a comparatively small faction of elite racial supremacist fascists doing colonialism, is exactly the same as the paranoid fever dreams of white supremacists that imagined the subjugated masses rising up against them and needing to be subjugated again by paramilitary dragoons” is deeply unserious in a way that undermines every other claim.
Not that “elite racial supremacist proto-fascists doing colonialism have accused their victims of doing the things they themselves were, in fact, doing to said victims, therefore any story which portrays elite conquering supremacists as doing the sorts of things that they actually do or acting like fascists actually do is secretly propaganda taking the side of elite racial supremacist fascists since they like to project all their crimes onto their victims” needs much undermining to fall apart. Like yes, no shit, fascists project all of their crimes and behaviors onto their victims, so anything portraying fascists and proto-fascist settler colonialists is necessarily going to have some similarities and the differences and context are needed to understand whether “the villains are doing fascist things” is projection by or criticism of fascists.
Like let’s break it down piece by piece: fascists exalt martial glory and supremacy above all other things - Frieren repeatedly and emphatically rejects martial glory on principle; fascists hold up purity of the ingroup and call for patriarchal nuclear families - Frieren is centered on a multi-racial adopted family with only a mother figure; fascists portray their victims as a teeming mass of vicious beasts or as perfidious schemers in their own ranks - Frieren portrays its villains as elitist individualists who can barely rein in their contempt for other races for long enough to attempt perfidy in the same fashion that the US army committed perfidy against indigenous peoples; etc.
Like fascism being an intrinsic trait for a sapient species is a weird and uncomfortable aspect of the show, but everything else is such a firm rejection of every fascist value that it just doesn’t scan to attach it to historic fascist and proto-fascist propaganda.
Never get between online leftists and their treats. Scratch a lib and a fascist bleeds; scratch a online leftist’s favorite media and a lib bleeds.
This fictional concept of a “ontological evil” species is obviously not supported by any real-world “ontological” basis. The application of “evil” as an exonym to appellate against external cultures or races has had monstrous historical and present-day consequences. The unfalsifiable idea that a certain race or culture is merely pretending to be civilized and sentient “while in reality, as we all know wink wink they are actually evil and un-persons” has such an abundance of parallels to historical racial discourse, genocide and prejudice that it’s comical and unsettling in equal measure that people would use it as apologia for their fictional media.
I said this years ago in a discussion about Tolkien (a racist POS) and his characterization of the orcs:
It fucking seems like it! You’re allowed to like your elf show goddamn, I’m trying to explain why people have issue with it! I love some slop that has easy to recognize problematic shit, I’m just tired of this particular trope - whether or not the author of Frieren is all in on xenophobic othering or not is immaterial to me. Or at least, it is secondary.
The demons just being an entire species that’s just intrinsically Fascist is a bit weird, instead of it being the result of ideology or something men choose to become out of self-interest, but conflating “this group of powerful and heavily armed imperial colonialists is intrinsically wrapped up in a hyper-elitist, racial supremacist warrior cult ethos that says that might makes right and who gleefully prey upon those weaker than themselves” with real world imperial settler colonialist narratives about how subjugated peoples were actually inherently inferior and immoral and needed to be chastised and controlled is a stretch.
If anything the demons are “what if American/Anglo soldiers and leaders were some kind of magical fey creature who could just sprout guns and bombs from their bodies at will and that they just did colonialism because they suck?” which is still weird and fails to really engage with why imperialists are like that, but lines up way more with jokes about Anglos being ontologically evil than with any historic racist logic; it is the oppressed looking at their violent oppressor and declaring that they are evil for what they are doing, only failing in that this is made to be some intrinsic trait rather than the result of a cruel and supremacist ideology and material self-interest.
Is it really? I don’t think so.
This seems like “what if ‘Birth of a Nation’ could be narratively reclaimed somehow as a film celebrating black liberation and condemning white supremacy” territory of discourse. I’m not interested in it because it’s plainly not how the majority of people would reasonably see it and that’s the only thing that matters in a consequentialist media analysis. The author’s intention, whether they somehow actually intended this to be a 500 IQ veiled critique against the bourgeoisie, are irrelevant. Most people see the “demons” in the same uncritical and unambiguous light as they see every DnD “ontologically evil,” which DnD itself lifted from Tolkien.
This confusion seems to appear because people hardly ever actually take a look at the rhetorical structure of that kind of racial and intercultural discourse. There’s two levels. There’s the level at ontology, which is that “this external group is weak and inferior and deserves to be taken advantage of by us.” Then there’s the level at epistemology, which that “this external group is a bunch of bloodthirsty savages because they only know violence and are the actual aggressors.” This is actually the definition of fascism as laid out by Umberto Eco, which is that “the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.” In real terms, they are weak (which justifies attacking them on a material basis), but in cognitive terms, they are strong (which justifies attacking them on a ideological basis, as it would be an act of bravery and heroism).
Take a look at the American Declaration of Independence. It doesn’t say “the ‘Indians’ are weak and therefore their inferiority justifies our conquest of their lands,” it frames the case against them in the exact precise terms you’ve laid out, where all the characteristics and qualities of the aggressor are projected upon their victim: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
“This story with a multiracial central cast that’s principally about valuing human connections and placing mundane good deeds above any sort of martial accomplishment, which is held in contempt as something cruel and tragic, with antagonists that are a comparatively small faction of elite racial supremacist fascists doing colonialism, is exactly the same as the paranoid fever dreams of white supremacists that imagined the subjugated masses rising up against them and needing to be subjugated again by paramilitary dragoons” is deeply unserious in a way that undermines every other claim.
Not that “elite racial supremacist proto-fascists doing colonialism have accused their victims of doing the things they themselves were, in fact, doing to said victims, therefore any story which portrays elite conquering supremacists as doing the sorts of things that they actually do or acting like fascists actually do is secretly propaganda taking the side of elite racial supremacist fascists since they like to project all their crimes onto their victims” needs much undermining to fall apart. Like yes, no shit, fascists project all of their crimes and behaviors onto their victims, so anything portraying fascists and proto-fascist settler colonialists is necessarily going to have some similarities and the differences and context are needed to understand whether “the villains are doing fascist things” is projection by or criticism of fascists.
Like let’s break it down piece by piece: fascists exalt martial glory and supremacy above all other things - Frieren repeatedly and emphatically rejects martial glory on principle; fascists hold up purity of the ingroup and call for patriarchal nuclear families - Frieren is centered on a multi-racial adopted family with only a mother figure; fascists portray their victims as a teeming mass of vicious beasts or as perfidious schemers in their own ranks - Frieren portrays its villains as elitist individualists who can barely rein in their contempt for other races for long enough to attempt perfidy in the same fashion that the US army committed perfidy against indigenous peoples; etc.
Like fascism being an intrinsic trait for a sapient species is a weird and uncomfortable aspect of the show, but everything else is such a firm rejection of every fascist value that it just doesn’t scan to attach it to historic fascist and proto-fascist propaganda.