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Starting from Dungeons
The creative paradigm of dungeons is a product of condensing, regularizing, and mass producing classic adventure experiences. In the dungeon, adventures in unknown environments, unexpected events, encounters with powerful enemies, treasure acquisition, secret discoveries, and more are gathered, covering almost all aspects of fantasy adventure works.
The formulaic dungeon creation paradigm essentially stems from the demand for game interaction, where games not only refer to electronic games but also include TRPG as its predecessor. The formulaic dungeon design guided by the rule book helps hosts create playable modules with limited time and creative inspiration. The various explanations for the design of dungeons are aimed ... at making it convenient and efficient, but also to some extent, they undermine the rationality of the worldview. After all, whether from the laws of geological movement or the laws of civilization (including humanoid creatures and even gods), the large number of dungeons appearing is illogical. Of course, this also includes the creation of ancient civilization relics or gods, which is a reasonable explanation. If the distribution of dungeons is not so widespread, then.
Of course, the aforementioned flaws, compared to the positive role played by the classic Dungeon system in TRPG and future electronic games, are also tolerable and a necessary compromise on gameplay. After all, strictly speaking, even the existence of UI itself can affect the immersion of the game, but it is still necessary.
However, in animations, comics, and novels, there is no need for "game like interaction" from the beginning, and the audience is not a player. So the above shortcomings will be constantly amplified. Why is the dungeon there - how many authors can provide a complete explanation that conforms to the worldview setting and logical consistency - who built the dungeon for what purpose, and how it has become what it is now. Most of it is just deliberately avoiding problems, even if it is the main stage of the story. Dungeons have almost no history - monsters exist in the dungeon from the beginning, and the stationary dungeon only begins to move when the protagonist enters it.
Rationalized Dungeons
The author of this work, who is deeply influenced by D&D and enjoys classic CRPGs such as the Bode's Gate series, provides a fairly consistent explanation of the origin of dungeons based on the D&D style dungeons. Dungeons are associated with the world itself, rather than isolated half planes, giving them temporality and their own history. The dungeon in the work is not static and has undergone several changes in history, and will continue to evolve as the plot progresses.
If the above is only a basic achievement that can be achieved by carefully referring to the Lord's Guide, then what is even more commendable is that this work also depicts the dungeon as a complete ecosystem. The monsters in the dungeon are not naturally occurring, and their only purpose is to kill humans. If killed, they will become gray prevention card models, and only the stereotype left by dropped items exists. The monsters in the dungeon still have biological characteristics, and like ordinary creatures, they need to ingest the substances necessary for life activities, or in other words, they need to "eat". These monsters constitute a unique dungeon ecosystem.
From Monster Illustrated Books to Complete Recipes
On the basis of D&D's rich monster encyclopedia and other prototypes, this work provides more rational explanations, and those phenomena that were originally explained as "due to magic" have been given quite "scientific", bold and imaginative rational explanations. The protagonist Leo observes, studies, and even consumes monsters from a naturalistic perspective, summarizing their ecology and habits. As a result, his works are full of the spirit of natural history.
As the work states, "Eating is a privilege of the living," it is the same for monsters and adventurers. This work is not only a food guidebook, but also a meticulous depiction of adventures in a fantasy world view using "eating" as a clue.
Heaven and earth are inhumane, and they treat all things as mere dogs. As the protagonists, the adventurers do not occupy a central position in the ecosystem. They do not consider themselves as the guardians of the dungeon order, but rather become a part of the food chain and an organic part of the entire ecosystem.
Detailed magic settings
Magic in today's fantasy world seems to be a natural and unexplained existence. But the magic setting in this game is not a game like numerical representation, and magic also has its own rules. Healing magic can heal wounds, but the person being cast still needs to consume organic matter to heal the wound; Summoning magic can create a demon, but it also requires the consumption of organic matter to form its body. At the same time, this work also provides detailed settings for the way resurrection magic works, so that resurrection magic can still exist in this low demon world view, while maintaining entertainment and not affecting the seriousness of the story.
On this basis, this work also provides a reasonable explanation for the worldview setting of magic, the most important ultimate power in the fantasy world view. Magic is not groundless, and this work uses seemingly ordinary settings to reveal the full picture of the world, truly shaping a unique worldview.
Combat Design and Life Details
The battle in this game is not about standing in place, competing and practicing the numerical size of time. Tactics and magic are not just explained off the field, but interact with the environment to play a role.
The characters draw knowledge from nature, arm themselves, and develop exciting combat strategies based on their understanding of monsters and the terrain of the dungeon. The battle process is not about flying and exploding, solving the mentality problem can lead to critical strikes. Fighting is accompanied by accidents and requires making reasonable choices beyond planned circumstances. In certain critical battles, the details of the character's actions are portrayed in great detail, and it is these key actions that do not require magical explanation that create victory. And some large-scale battles boldly unleash their imagination, imagining conflicts between monsters located at the top of the food chain.
In addition to combat, this game also pays attention to details in terms of clothing, food, housing, and transportation. From soap making to vegetable harvesting, everything is based on a worldview and a unique expression of the dungeon ecology, presenting a sense of firsthand experience from a team running perspective.
From Eating to Desire
Dungeons are not just inhabited by monsters. Adventurers and indigenous people form the society of dungeons, which have unique production, lifestyle, and customs.
In the second half, the theme of this work is further presented, shifting from eating to universal desires, revealing the essence of desire in life, with various desires driving dungeons. It is desire that shapes dungeons and even the entire world, and as a result, this work elevates the worldview setting to the level of ideology. In addition, this work also presents a special perspective on dungeons (rooted in Western tradition) from an Eastern perspective.
The plot of the story is driven by characters with different desires, who take different actions for their own desires at the same time and jointly influence the situation inside the dungeon. The characters are not driven by the plot, but rather the creators of the plot.
epilogue
Dungeon Meshi is a harmonious unity of character, plot, and worldview at the creative paradigm level. Worldview serves the plot, and the plot expresses the worldview. The character conforms to the worldview setting and promotes the development of the plot. Dungeons are not just objects of adventure and electronic game like strategies, but containers that carry the desires of characters for joy, anger, sorrow, and joy.

"We are not fairy tales, we do exist."
——Brave Himmel
It can be said that the words of the brave Himmel opened the story of Frieden, but it is worth exploring whether this work does indeed go beyond the illusory fairy tale as Himmel had hoped, depicting solid characters and their stories as if they had existed before.
Characters exist in the world, and the establishment of their image cannot be separated from their worldview and the stories they experience. In this sense, the three elements of character, plot, and worldview (environment) together constitute the gestalt of the work. Therefore, the plot and worldview will directly affect character ... shaping. If the worldview as a stage itself is full of loopholes, how can the character stand on the ground.
Modern Stories Against a Fantastic Background
The story background of the 13th episode of the anime "The Same Clan Disdain" can be fully understood as follows: In Hokkaido, there are two brothers whose parents have both passed away and their age difference is significant. They make a living by running a farm. One day, a prominent figure (Heiter) from Tokyo (Holy City) discovered his brother's talent and recommended him to work in a large enterprise, and he lived with his brother in Tokyo. The older brother refused the invitation because he didn't want his younger brother to lose his hometown. Later, his younger brother graduated from university with excellent grades and invited him to start a business overseas (becoming an adventurer and traveling far away). Although his younger brother longed for his dream, he did not want to leave his brother alone in his hometown, so he refused the invitation... As for the key to portraying the character of Sein's hatred towards his peers, Friren's portrayal of this character was quite weak, only stuck in rigid lines and titles.
This type of modern story with a fantasy shell is not uncommon in this work, but there are indeed some unique to the "fantasy" worldview——
JRPG Narrative and NPC supporting role
The post hero narrative of this work seems to deconstruct the JRPG style hero demon king narrative, but this deconstruction is quite superficial.
In episode 12 of the anime, in Apart, Frieden and his team visit Sword Village and have a conversation with an NPC with an exclamation mark above their heads. They then take on the task of eliminating monsters. At the same time, it leads to the story of the Sword of the Brave, but the "anti routine" of this work only stays at the simple reversal of changing the hero who drew the sword to the hero who couldn't draw the sword, without deconstructing the deep creative paradigm, and without breaking away from the mold of the hero demon king narrative.
The 16th episode of the animation, Bpart, is more typical. Walking on a large map, visiting a new settlement, having conversations with local NPCs, doing errands for NPCs with exclamation marks above their heads, and obtaining intelligence after completing the task. The phenomenon of highly NPC-like characters in the settlements visited during the journey is quite common in this game. The purpose of these characters is to communicate with the main characters, provide intelligence, and dispatch missions, with almost no character image to speak of. The whole world has become a performance show revolving around Frieden's journey.
Furthermore, it is worth noting that it has been 5 years since Frieden moved from the central countries to the northern countries (if we start counting together with Fern). As a work centered on travel, after crossing a considerable amount of space, the settlements visited by Frieden have almost no regional cultural differences, and everything still presents a single and homogeneous landscape like a "model play of the other world", seemingly always spinning in place. So much so that Frieden's long journey became an adventure in the bathtub.
A world view full of loopholes
In episode 6 of the animation, the massive dragon is killed by Stark and quickly turns into a magical particle that dissipates. The horns of the dark dragon that Friren entrusted to Himmel for safekeeping have not only been intact for half a century, but also continue to emit an evil aura from the cabinet. This kind of monster's body turns gray to prevent the card model from getting stuck, and only the ones left by dropped objects are set to be JRPG, which is completely different from "existence".
In episode 3 of the animation, after Guwar was sealed, the killing magic was jointly studied and analyzed by wizards from all over the continent. It only took a few years to crack it and incorporate it into the human magic system. Defense magic was also developed as a countermeasure, and it quickly became popular as a general attack magic. The problem lies in the fact that the transition from "Guval being sealed" to "summoning wizards from all over the continent to study murder magic together" requires conditions in just a few years, namely the popularization of efficient communication and transportation methods, whether they are magical or technological, which is the same in any worldview. From the information revealed in the work, it takes 10 years to travel from the central countries of the mainland to the northernmost point of the continent, and Fren, the youngest third level magic in the history of Frieden's disciple, can only maintain half an hour of flying magic, which is not enough to fly from a rural area to the nearest town (and flying magic has only been used by humans for 40 years, and Guwar was sealed 80 years ago). The transportation in the worldview of the work has only developed to carriages and sailboats, so the premise of "summoning magical envoys from all over the continent to study together" is difficult to achieve. And this is not an insignificant detail, it is precisely the setting basis for one of the main plot points (in addition, murder magic will be mentioned multiple times after the work).
In a society where political power is divided and feudal system is dominant, the existence of a unified magic management organization that is independent of the main political power on the whole continent is also unimaginable. It is even more unimaginable that organizations capable of establishing such influence often change.
The above phenomenon is essentially the use of RPG style settings, which take the possible plot that may occur in modern backgrounds for granted in the work, or create a plot based on certain settings (mainly Frieden's longevity), without considering its rationality in the worldview setting.
The Demon Clan being Described
Among all the settings in this game, the most abrupt and unreasonable one is none other than the settings related to the demon clan.
The demon race has a body similar to that of humans, but it will transform into magical particles and dissipate like monsters after death; The demon race is considered no different from beasts, but they use diplomatic tactics; The demon race does not have the concept of a family, but has a social hierarchy that is extremely similar to that of humans; The demon race is believed to not understand emotions, but may exhibit emotions such as liking, disgust, curiosity, pride, and revenge behavior; The demon race is believed to only imitate human speech, but they use language to think and communicate like humans
The description of the demon race in the work is full of self contradictory fractures, and it is naturally impossible to draw correct conclusions based on self contradictory premises. Therefore, in order to examine the issue of the demon race, it is necessary to examine the root causes of such contradictions and fractures, excavate the parts that exist in the work but are not expressed on the surface, and also examine the creative paradigm of the work and the ideology hidden behind it.
The hero demon king narrative is also known as the human demon race narrative: humans (warriors) are the subject, self, and center; And the demon race (demon king) is the object, the other, and the edge. The demon race is constructed - this work establishes human self-identity, its central position, and the "justice" of the brave by constructing the demon race as the other. The demon race, on the other hand, is the "they" constructed to ensure "us" and "their evil" to ensure "our justice". God, named the author, declared humanity as the chosen one and the demon race as demons. The demon race cannot express themselves, they can only be expressed by humans. Even in the battle, the demons took quite a few unreasonable actions that were not like "emotionless beasts", all of which were to create opportunities for portraying the main character's image.
The prototype of this binary opposition ideology can be found: possessing human appearance, social hierarchy and organizational structure, human emotions and rationality, and being a cunning, wicked, and ruthless beast with cunning tactics and strategic stupidity - such images have appeared multiple times in human history, constituting the opposition between civilization and barbarism, referred to as "heretics", "barbarians", and "barbarians" in different languages, all of which have a common meaning - "enemy".
Similarly, both elves and dwarves lack their own culture, just variants of humans with long ears, big beards, and longer lifespans. The only difference is that in the human centric system, elves and dwarves are classified as companions of humans, while demons are classified as enemies of humans (the above broad definition of humans also includes humanoid creatures such as elves and dwarves).
The Singularity of Life expectancy Theory
Milan Kundera used an example to reveal Keqi: when he saw a child running on the grass, Keqi caused two lines of "tightly connected" tears: the first line said, "It's so good to see the child running on the grass."; The second line says, "It's so great to be with all the humans and be moved by the children running on the grass.". And the second type of tears makes Keqi even more Keqi.
Criticism of Keqi requires exposing its structure and mode of action, rather than just a slogan, otherwise it is also difficult to detach from Keqi.
Returning to "Frieden," the performance of this work is not as restrained as some viewers claim (and it must be said that it is probably more restrained than those "crying and pulling" style works with large-scale facial expressions). Taking the 16 part Apart as an example, although the performance of the screen is calm and soothing, the lyrical (or even sensational) BGM used to mobilize the audience's emotions has hardly stopped. This is also the consistent performance strategy of this work, providing the audience with "restrained" and "different", as well as some viewers' evaluations of "high-end" emotions.
What should be paid more attention to is the narrative structure of the work:
When the audience is looking for a certain certain certain emotion in the work, which is exactly what the work claims to provide to the audience (and also provides an opportunity to experience emotions with other viewers) - if the audience wants to tear and be moved, it is stated at the beginning that this is longevity theory. Come in and cry; The audience wanted Long Aotian to pretend to be a pig and eat a tiger, so they gave Frieden the opportunity to flash kill the Great Demon Clan; If the audience wants to heal and slow down their life, they will showcase a soothing journey and rural scenery. (This is obviously not an isolated phenomenon of this work either)
The post hero narrative of this work is based on a series of previous hero demon king narratives. The audience has already constructed the image of the hero and constructed emotions towards him. The work only needs to awaken and utilize this concept.
Even without adopting the setting of lifespan theory, there is an objective difference in human physical strength and age. Separation and death are never new things in literary works, and the setting of lifespan theory is nothing more than solidifying it at the setting level and clearly conveying to the audience a pre prepared "emotion" and a safe "sadness" that weakens the unexpected. The theory of lifespan itself is a set of bizarre creative paradigms.
What does Frieden bring to the audience
It is obvious that "Frieden" has a high popularity and evaluation among the audience, so what does this work bring to the audience and why it has received widespread acceptance and praise.
It is not difficult to see that through the binary narrative of the hero demon king, Frieden creates a "fully affirmative" viewing experience: (from the human perspective) proclaiming the victory of justice and praising the greatness of heroes; On this background, praise the seemingly unchanging beauty of life; Tell some life lessons that sound reasonable but are quite vague - without any in-depth thinking or the need for any in-depth thinking. This work does not have a negative, reflective, or dialectical dimension, and all meanings are deterministic. It simply repeats the traditional, mainstream, and majority values in a lyrical way. And the audience repeatedly confirms their ideology while being constantly affirmed. But this is not a painful brainwashing, but rather a comfortable experience for most viewers - yes, yes, there's no need to think, accept it, that's good, that's it, everyone is like this, I hope so, Amen.
As the protagonist and the subject of travel, the character shaping of Frieden, after the change in the beginning, that is, the establishment of the character, is only left with a loop of constantly repeating stories that have only been repeated for a few years, falling into eternal stillness. Travel no longer has temporality, and Frieden buries history without history. In the non unexpected daily and non adventurous journey, the seemingly broad map of the continent is deliberately condensed into a miniature sculpture surrounding the audience's tear glands from the beginning. A worldview full of wounds and holes cannot support the statue of the brave, nor can Himmel and others [indeed exist]
Frieden is an ideological fairy tale.
epilogue
Due to certain similarities (with mild spoilers, not specifically mentioned here), Frieden can be compared to Dungeon Meshi
. If "Dungeon Meshi
" reinterprets the classic monster guidebook with the spirit of naturalism; So Frieden is just a JRPG style hero - demon king narrative+traditional dragon arrogance pretending to be a pig and eating a tiger+the most trendy slow life in another world
Of course, Frieden undoubtedly has exquisite painting and skilled performances, far exceeding the average production level of most animations. However, just as one can praise a work; Works that have been elevated to the altar can also be examined.