Sousou no Frieren Episode 10 Discussion

You thought we'd get some epic fight? PFFT. Joking aside, the depth this story and characters has, have in awe. Dedicating her entire life to that one thing and staying hidden to achieve her goal, insane.

Great episode

Frieren straight up said

Aura looked so sad before she died, I guess the spell only works on actions and the victim can still think and talk.
It also means that demons have some real feelings (or it was just crocodile tears)

I feel bad for the demons 😅

I enjoyed this episode (as well as the adapted chapters,) but I did get the feeling that it took away something from Fern. To me, at least, it seemed as though Ferns talent for concealing her mana was meant to be a unique thing to her. Something that might give her a circumstantial edge over more powerful and skilled spellcasters like Frieren, and a distinct role in difficult scenarios. After this episode it feels like rapid-fire spellcasting has gone from being an addition to its replacement. At the very least, a specialization in quick casting does feel very fitting for a human mage. Especially in this story.

I think, though, that it might have felt more clever had the characters instead devised a plot that took advantage of Ferns ability to conceal her mana from Aura. Perhaps boosting her with some sort of magical potion or herb or potion. The side effects of such could be negligible, and unpleasant and played for comedy and/or drama.

Admittedly, adding these mana boosting (not just restoring, or it wouldn't work for the plan) items to the world would have been an irreversible decision that would definitely affect future plotlines. So I can see why the author might want to avoid it. Or maybe they didn't, I'm not very far in, so maybe items for this purpose do exist and I just haven't seen them yet. It might also have felt contrived to have the characters be in possession of such an item, especially if it's rare. Or maybe not, after all, it wasn't too long ago that they had raided a dragons nest.

This probably wasn't the most well written post, I'm pretty tired right now and I accidentally deleted the original version of this (from the anime's "what did you think of this episode" pop-up, not from the actual forums. So I couldn't undo.) But I hope I've gotten my message across.

@ArimaKana Have you seen the movie: The Prestige?