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edit : poo poo, wrong thread edit2: gently caress, what a page topper 
TwoPair fucked around with this message at 11:26 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 08:08
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| # ? Jun 4, 2024 21:58 |
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The funniest part is that it was obvious from like, the start of the manga that Naruto was the kid of the ninja president based on ninja mount rushmore but Kishimoto tried to pretend that wasn't the case for over a decade before having to go actually lol yeah it was.
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Mar 10, 2024 09:32
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Rand Brittain posted:It honestly seems way easier to pass than most of the other exams we've seen, so there were probably a bunch of completely ridiculous conditions they didn't bother to mention. It was only a second class exam, though. Anyway, I really liked how casually Übel stepped past that arrogant guy and halved him as an afterthought. It looked like she could easily slice a line of 10 such people.
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Mar 10, 2024 11:52
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I think Stark and Naruto would’ve been good pals.
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Mar 10, 2024 14:26
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Oh, Fern would loathe him, though.
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Mar 10, 2024 14:33
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Rand Brittain posted:I mean, he didn't neglect his basic defenses; that's the thing. He was literally a master specialist at basic defenses. Yeah,if just going "nu uh" was enough, every first class mage would get bodied by a level 1 Fighter who doesn't give a crap about how any of their magic works. Clearly you have to have some level of knowledge about how the magical process actually works to be able to "visualise" countering a spell in sufficient detail. And that Ubel's talent is that she's fully capable of rationally comprehending how the spell works and why it's impossible to just power through and yet can instinctively visualise a counter anyway based purely on: "scissors cut cloth gud."
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Mar 10, 2024 18:12
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This is really just due to the expectations I had coming in, but I was a bit disappointed they went with making Ubel sounding more sinister in this scene than I was "hearing" in my head while reading it. I always thought she'd have a little more of a flat affect. My read on the cloth cutting scene (and her character in general) was that she's neurodivergent and aware of it, always having difficulty relating to people, but was able to connect with her sister through this shared activity. The focus on the sensory aspect of it really resonated with me, as being hyperaware of noises, tactile sensations, etc. can be part of that all too -- it can reach the point of distraction or discomfort, but at the same time you really become fixated on all of the sensory elements right in that moment, such that it can create really vivid memories. I felt it explained her empathy-learning, as well as her fixation on Clone Guy -- she's reaching out and trying to understand/connect with people, in her way, and Clone Guy being such a cold fish presents a really challenging case. But if her name really is intended to be as literal as everyone else's (and not a rare red herring), I guess that's fine too, just a bit of a letdown.
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Mar 10, 2024 19:28
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usenet celeb 1992 posted:
I take it as the same way for the same reasons and I'm just headcanoning it that way until she does an obvious "evil" thing. \/\/\/ 
GATOS Y VATOS fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 19:38
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My personal take on Ubel is that her whole point is that while she gives off bad vibes like a freaking Sauron, if you look past that and examine what she actually does, she comes off as pretty reasonable and rational. Like yeah, the whole exam she acts like a giggling psycho, but she doesn't really do anything out of ordinary compared to other exam-takers - she is a bit battle hungry, but she is not the only one and outside of that, she fully cooperates, doesn't provoke unnecessary fights or tries to murder allies. Heck, she comes off less psychotic than the "I will gladly murder teenagers to pass the exam" guy for example. Even the whole "murder of the first class mage" thing turned out to be an accident, where she misjudged the power of her spell and everyone else was too arrogant to think about what could happen if someone did manage to get past Burg's defenses.
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Mar 10, 2024 19:59
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I think Ubel is meant to be if not a deconstruction then at least a play on the character archetype of "Murderer who is also taking the Exam", like Hisoka in the Hunter Exam. Like yeah she's totally willing to kill but she doesn't actually seek it out just because she likes killing or something
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Mar 10, 2024 20:06
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VideoWitch posted:I think Ubel is meant to be if not a deconstruction then at least a play on the character archetype of "Murderer who is also taking the Exam", like Hisoka in the Hunter Exam. Like yeah she's totally willing to kill but she doesn't actually seek it out just because she likes killing or something She seeks it out a little. She pointedly knew the bandits were there and stopped so they could accost her.
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Mar 10, 2024 20:15
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VideoWitch posted:I think Ubel is meant to be if not a deconstruction then at least a play on the character archetype of "Murderer who is also taking the Exam", like Hisoka in the Hunter Exam. Like yeah she's totally willing to kill but she doesn't actually seek it out just because she likes killing or something I mean, there's also that the exam itself is psychotic. The first challenge was designed to tacitly encourage teams to try and kill one another, and the second challenge is essentially "you ultimately have to swallow your pride, either to work together with others or break the bottle and save yourself, else you die." You'd think the mage's association would want more first class mages - not less - and yet the whole test seems to be set up as a meat grinder that just pointlessly imperils skilled mages. Ubel may be somewhat blase about killing, but if so she doesn't seem that different from somebody like Genau in that regard.
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Mar 10, 2024 20:26
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LostRook posted:She seeks it out a little. She pointedly knew the bandits were there and stopped so they could accost her. But if you kill a bunch of killers, you've saved all the people they would have killed later 
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Mar 10, 2024 20:29
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To be fair, what we've seen of the demons suggests that you need to be more then a gifted theorist to merit being called first class. If the tests are psychotic, imagine what the demons will do if you go into the north unprepared.
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Mar 10, 2024 20:30
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Sydin posted:I mean, there's also that the exam itself is psychotic. The first challenge was designed to tacitly encourage teams to try and kill one another, and the second challenge is essentially "you ultimately have to swallow your pride, either to work together with others or break the bottle and save yourself, else you die." You'd think the mage's association would want more first class mages - not less - and yet the whole test seems to be set up as a meat grinder that just pointlessly imperils skilled mages. Ubel may be somewhat blase about killing, but if so she doesn't seem that different from somebody like Genau in that regard. Why though? The whole point is that a first class mage should be able to take care of themselves in extremely dangerous situations - if they let more through that would just die in a random dungeon (where they don't have escape vials etc), it dilutes the whole concept. More 1st class mages isn't inherently good if they suck at doing the jobs a 1st class mage is needed for. As for imperiling mages, it's not like you are forced to become the top ranking of mage or anything. If you don't want to risk your life, why are you trying for that ranking? The people at ranks 2 or 3 seem more than skilled enough to do a huge variety of jobs or to do magical research or to teach lower levels - basically they can do anything that isn't high level dungeon diving.
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Mar 10, 2024 20:39
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Gully Foyle posted:Why though? The whole point is that a first class mage should be able to take care of themselves in extremely dangerous situations - if they let more through that would just die in a random dungeon (where they don't have escape vials etc), it dilutes the whole concept. More 1st class mages isn't inherently good if they suck at doing the jobs a 1st class mage is needed for. There's a lot more to magic than fighting though, meanwhile it seems like the tests have been focused implicitly around feats of combat ability. Yeah the tests themselves have been "capture a bird" and "get to the bottom of the dungeon" but to do those things you ended up needing to be pretty drat good at fighting. Granted this makes sense since Flamme's master is the one ultimately running this whole thing and Flamme herself said she was a bloodthirsty person who had no interest in an age of peace. The result is imo there's a sinister air that hangs over the whole association in general and the first class tests in particular, and it's kinda funny how they then turn around and think Ubel is creepy when honestly she seems to be the one closest to their wavelength.
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Mar 10, 2024 20:44
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I mean it's not a mystery why the Mage Association is structured the way it is. It's because Serie is only interested in working with the most powerful mages, so the system is designed to weed out the people she would have no interest in.
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Mar 10, 2024 20:46
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Sydin posted:There's a lot more to magic than fighting though, meanwhile it seems like the tests have been focused implicitly around feats of combat ability. Yeah the tests themselves have been "capture a bird" and "get to the bottom of the dungeon" but to do those things you ended up needing to be pretty drat good at fighting. Granted this makes sense since Flamme's master is the one ultimately running this whole thing and Flamme herself said she was a bloodthirsty person who had no interest in an age of peace. The result is imo there's a sinister air that hangs over the whole association in general and the first class tests in particular, and it's kinda funny how they then turn around and think Ubel is creepy when honestly she seems to be the one closest to their wavelength. But why would you become a first class mage, if you are not interested in combat and using magic for fighting though? As far as we know, the entire point of first class mages is that they are the best at fighting and thus are able to go alone in the most dangerous places on the continent with expectations that they survive. That's the whole reason why Frieren and Fern want to become one in the first place. So if you just want to chill and study magic in peace, why would you ever take the first class exam? It's not like you are limited in non-combat endeavors by not being a first class, that's the whole point of Denken - he decided to focus on politics instead, and became more influential and powerful than any first class mage.
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Mar 10, 2024 20:59
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The Mage Association is basically a compromise. Serie said “Fine I’ll do what you want and run a system that teaches everyone magic, But I’m going to make everyone compete for numbered ranks so everyone knows who’s a virgin and who’s a chad.
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Mar 10, 2024 21:05
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I feel like the issue isn't really that the First Class Exam is too hard (because it isn't, when compared with what's waiting out there), but that the Association isn't doing enough work (or any work) to stop people who shouldn't have been there from taking it, thus losing lots of perfectly good Second Class mages.
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Mar 10, 2024 21:13
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Rand Brittain posted:I feel like the issue isn't really that the First Class Exam is too hard (because it isn't, when compared with what's waiting out there), but that the Association isn't doing enough work (or any work) to stop people who shouldn't have been there from taking it, thus losing lots of perfectly good Second Class mages. Well they state you have to at least be 5th Class to be allowed to take the test. And how dangerous the test is depends on the proctor.
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Mar 10, 2024 21:16
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VideoWitch posted:I mean it's not a mystery why the Mage Association is structured the way it is. It's because Serie is only interested in working with the most powerful mages, so the system is designed to weed out the people she would have no interest in. Lt. Lizard posted:But why would you become a first class mage, if you are not interested in combat and using magic for fighting though? As far as we know, the entire point of first class mages is that they are the best at fighting and thus are able to go alone in the most dangerous places on the continent with expectations that they survive. That's the whole reason why Frieren and Fern want to become one in the first place. So if you just want to chill and study magic in peace, why would you ever take the first class exam? It's not like you are limited in non-combat endeavors by not being a first class, that's the whole point of Denken - he decided to focus on politics instead, and became more influential and powerful than any first class mage. Anyway all I was ever trying to say was just that I think it's funny Ubel is hyped up as so scary and alien by Sense when she's really the only one who's on the wavelength of what the Association is implicitly looking for with these kinds of test. She explicitly contrasts with someone like Denken, who outwardly seems to conform much more to the standard powerful association type but in reality he thinks the "learn any spell you want" prize is bullshit like Frieren and has already cultivated wealth and status without first class recognition.
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Mar 10, 2024 21:16
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The real reason here for the exam is that Serie, having lived for thousands upon thousands of years has grown tired of all known entertainment except for the one genre that will forever be interesting : shounen tournament arcs.
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Mar 10, 2024 21:22
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January 6 Survivor posted:The real reason here for the exam is that Serie, having lived for thousands upon thousands of years has grown tired of all known entertainment except for the one genre that will forever be interesting : shounen tournament arcs. All of those books in her place aren't grimoires but tankobans
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Mar 10, 2024 21:24
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Rand Brittain posted:I feel like the issue isn't really that the First Class Exam is too hard (because it isn't, when compared with what's waiting out there), but that the Association isn't doing enough work (or any work) to stop people who shouldn't have been there from taking it, thus losing lots of perfectly good Second Class mages. But how many people have actually died so far? I know some people died in the first test (to the monsters at least, was anyone actually killed by another mage?). And then the second test had the bottle golems - did we see anyone die? It seems like at least with the second test they have reasonable safety precautions to preserve the lives of those participating. The first test is a bit more of a weeding out, but if you can't hack it there you would just die in the north.
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Mar 10, 2024 21:27
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Sydin posted:Right, and in that regard Ubel's probably the closest to the actual Association philosophy in that she seems primarily interested in using the test as a means to obtain new and stronger magic, which again makes it funny that Sense thinks she's an alien and the Association has already booted her from an exam. I don't really agree with this. Ubel isn't able (or hasn't demonstrated the temperament) to develop new magic in the first place. Even her usage of Reelseiden is extremely limited and not under her control at all since it's not that Ubel made herself able to cut hair by convincing herself that she could but that it's just something she already felt in the first place. This ties further into "1st class mages should be able to overcome". Ubel doesn't (or hasn't since I don't know the future) overcome anything she isn't already good at. It's not that she figured out she could beat the super fortress cloak but rather it happened to be something that looks cut-able to her.
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Mar 10, 2024 21:31
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MonsterEnvy posted:Well they state you have to at least be 5th Class to be allowed to take the test. And how dangerous the test is depends on the proctor. Plus iirc it's straight up said that the exam carries the risk of death. So everyone in the test either knows what the hell they're signing on for, or is a complete loving moron. (And probably any complete loving moron wouldn't make it to the rank 5 you need to qualify for the test) Lt. Lizard posted:But why would you become a first class mage, if you are not interested in combat and using magic for fighting though? As far as we know, the entire point of first class mages is that they are the best at fighting and thus are able to go alone in the most dangerous places on the continent with expectations that they survive. That's the whole reason why Frieren and Fern want to become one in the first place. So if you just want to chill and study magic in peace, why would you ever take the first class exam? It's not like you are limited in non-combat endeavors by not being a first class, that's the whole point of Denken - he decided to focus on politics instead, and became more influential and powerful than any first class mage. Yeah, I mean Sense lays it out pretty clear in this episode that a first class mage needs to be able to find a way to overcome a challenge like the dungeon, whether that means straight up being powerful enough or capable of strategizing and working with others to overcome a challenge. TwoPair fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 21:49
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I think from Serie's point of view this whole association thing was started by Flamme as a way to eradicate the demons. That's part of why she's not a mage for an era of peace and it's a lot of why the organization is so combat focused. Of course Flamme's greatest accomplishments were all social in spite of her being basically the greatest super mage ever and I suspect in the long run it's really a ploy to make Serie more outwardly empathetic much like how she effectively set up Frieren's journey to reunite with dead Himmel from roughly a thousands years ago.
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Mar 10, 2024 22:00
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LostRook posted:She seeks it out a little. She pointedly knew the bandits were there and stopped so they could accost her. Anybody who has ever played an RPG would also be farming bandits for XP and wouldn’t think any less of Ubel.
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Mar 10, 2024 23:20
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I think you're meant to compare everybody in Frieren to the kinds of assholes you see in something like HUNTER X HUNTER, which is full of guys who absolutely do commit casual murders for advantage. In Frieren, a lot of people talk about how it would be sensible to kill their fellow test-takers for the sake of getting First Class, but in the end... nobody actually goes through with it, not even the actual crazy murderer.
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Mar 10, 2024 23:31
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Nobody's flagged for PVP
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Mar 10, 2024 23:47
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Rand Brittain posted:I think you're meant to compare everybody in Frieren to the kinds of assholes you see in something like HUNTER X HUNTER, which is full of guys who absolutely do commit casual murders for advantage. In Frieren, a lot of people talk about how it would be sensible to kill their fellow test-takers for the sake of getting First Class, but in the end... nobody actually goes through with it, not even the actual crazy murderer. Isn't it implied in the anime that Methode's party kicked the rear end of another party for the stile?
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Mar 11, 2024 00:21
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usenet celeb 1992 posted:But if her name really is intended to be as literal as everyone else's (and not a rare red herring), I guess that's fine too, just a bit of a letdown. The thing is that plenty of names in the series are red herrings or skin-deep or overly literal descriptors. Frieren means "freezing" or "to freeze" because she looks detached and cold, but the story is all about her empathy and her emotions. Fern means "far"or "distant" which fits her demeanor, but we also get a good sense of her feelings and emotions and also pouty faces. "Stark" means strong, and he is, but he's also kind frequently a comedic scaredy-cat and the distance between his physical strength and the rest of him is central to his character. Meanwhile the mages in this arc are frequently named very literally for their powers, "Lawine" meaning "avalanche", "Richter" means "judge" but he's probably named for his earth magic, "Laufen" means "to run", "Scharf" means "sharp", and so forth. Taken together, "Ubel" seems to be a mix of all of the above. She is introduced as having killed someone with the possibility of more deaths immediately apparent, has a strange manner of reacting to things, and has the seeming ability to chop things up, but to date she hasn't really acted as "evil" as her name literally means. She worked well with her team, genuinely seems to like Wirbel, goes out of her way to support Land by fighting a battle she believes she can't win, and in this episode asks Denken directly if she needs to fight Sense's replica and then does so when he says yes. And I want to home in on that last bit because it seems a little bit like she wouldn't have if she didn't need to, and she immediately accepts Denken's response and further says that she doesn't really need him to go into details which suggests she trusts the dude and is willing to defer to him. So no, I don't think Ubel is actually "evil" any more than Frieren is "frozen". I think her name comes from her initial first impression, her general offkilter vibe, a shorthand to describe her violent looking cutting magic and the abnormal intuition-based way she can use it, and not necessarily the true extent of her character. Hell, I honestly don't know if that bit in the flashback with Sense was necessarily meant as a threat, I think she may well have been asking an honest, sympathetic question.
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Mar 11, 2024 04:01
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Omnicrom posted:The thing is that plenty of names in the series are red herrings or skin-deep or overly literal descriptors. Frieren means "freezing" or "to freeze" because she looks detached and cold, but the story is all about her empathy and her emotions. She spent 1000 years locked in an obsessive post-traumatic fugue half-heartedly working towards the Demon King's death. Frozen absolutely fits Frieren. It just so happens that the series is about her thawing.
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Mar 11, 2024 04:25
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Rewatching the ep just to remember who decided to fight who. Do you think Richter teamed up with Lawine to take on replica Kanne and replica Lawine because he thought he would actually be a good match against Lawine, or because he really just wanted to show Lawine that he could kill her by killing her replica in front of her?
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Mar 11, 2024 05:51
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HamburgerTownUSA posted:Rewatching the ep just to remember who decided to fight who. I took it to be they had all previously discussed what their weaknesses were and then paired off to fight clones based on the exploitation of said weaknesses.
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Mar 11, 2024 06:00
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Omnicrom posted:Hell, I honestly don't know if that bit in the flashback with Sense was necessarily meant as a threat, I think she may well have been asking an honest, sympathetic question. Just want to say that I agree with what you're saying about Ubel, it's just that this scene in particular always read to me (in print) as something she genuinely felt as a meaningful and pivotal shared experience, but the line reading in the anime came off as sinister -- to the extent that people in this thread have (understandably) heard it as "serial killer talk". usenet celeb 1992 fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Mar 11, 2024 |
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Mar 11, 2024 06:12
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Omnicrom posted:The thing is that plenty of names in the series are red herrings or skin-deep or overly literal descriptors. Frieren means "freezing" or "to freeze" because she looks detached and cold, but the story is all about her empathy and her emotions. Fern means "far"or "distant" which fits her demeanor, but we also get a good sense of her feelings and emotions and also pouty faces. "Stark" means strong, and he is, but he's also kind frequently a comedic scaredy-cat and the distance between his physical strength and the rest of him is central to his character. Meanwhile the mages in this arc are frequently named very literally for their powers, "Lawine" meaning "avalanche", "Richter" means "judge" but he's probably named for his earth magic, "Laufen" means "to run", "Scharf" means "sharp", and so forth. I agree with everything you just presented here about Ubel. Perhaps I am just in camp psycho but the flashback did not come across as a thread to me, it felt like a genuine explanation and her saying "you think too hard"
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Mar 11, 2024 06:27
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nothing ubel has actually done suggests to me that she's 'evil,' no. seems pretty clear to me that although the names are very literal, the characters exist in relation to them rather than being defined by them. in ubel's case she's framed as bad news in several different ways, not just with her name. She kind of is bad news, but that's not the same thing as being evil. She's more just a dangerous person who makes people uneasy. So with her the name is more something people might assume about her than something that's actually accurate to her personality
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Mar 11, 2024 06:31
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| # ? Jun 4, 2024 21:58 |
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To be exact Ubel evil translates to “bad, ill, nauseous, sick, foul” böse is the evil that translates to “angry, bad, wicked, nasty, mad, sinister”
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Mar 11, 2024 09:23
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