Sousou no Frieren – Episode 16

Episode Synopsis:

The party visits one of Frieren’s old acquaintances; an elderly dwarf protecting a small human village. Frieren reminisces with him while the warrior trains Stark, but how much of the past he truly remembers is unclear.

Later, as the crew continue northward towards Äußerst, Sein seeks out anyone who may have seen the friend who set out on his own adventure years ago. After running a series of errands for an especially stubborn old woman, he finally gets a lead. However, the trail of his friend leads far away from the party’s current destination – will Sein hold true to his companions, or fulfill his goal of reuniting with his childhood friend?

Review:

This episode explores themes of memory and legacy using the show’s established framework of paired short stories. We get time to dwell on those themes with Frieren and Sein, while also enjoying some great montages and party back-and-forth.

Early on, Frieren and the gang roll up to a village protected by Old Man Voll, who’s ancient even by dwarven standards. The villagers claim the gone senile, but he does remember Frieren and her old companions, and his quick reflexes are enough to take down Stark. Throughout the week that follows, Voll puts Stark through intense training, while the others help out around the village. We also learn that Voll continues to protect the village out of love for his wife who passed away long before Frieren’s first party met him.

Much of what is said centers around memory, and how Himmel trusted Freiren and Eisen to carry his on to future generations. Freiren calls this an important duty, and one she learned from Voll. When they first met, he claimed to be carrying those memories for his wife, but eventually he reveals to Frieren that he can no longer remember her clearly. However, he still protects the village gladly.

For anyone who has lost someone they love, there are times where they can’t easily recall things about them. Their face and voice swim in and out of memory as we live on, and there’s a fear of losing those memories entirely. Even the normally passive Frieren tries to play this off as Voll joking with her, but it becomes clear that his memories are starting to fade and blend together. It’s a scary aspect of life I’ve struggled with myself, and I can only imagine what it would be like for someone who could live for millennia and grow to care for so many people over that time.

This topic comes back later in the episode, but first, the party has other business.

Their real business is finding someone who has seen Sein’s old friend. Luckily, the dude decided to go by the difficult-to-forget moniker, Gorilla Warrior, and a whole bunch of people remember seeing him in the past. Eventually, the party tracks down an old woman who may know where old G-Dubs headed next, but the other townsfolk warn the party that she’s notoriously stubborn and won’t give up the info easily.

What follows is a series of fetch-quests and errands that would be familiar to anyone who’s played an RPG in the last 30 years. We get a hilarious montage of our heroes delivering letters, harvesting crops, and fleeing enraged monsters; all of which makes Frieren nostalgic for her own party’s similar shenanigans.

Eventually, the old woman gives them one final task – to clean a statue of two forgotten warriors who look suspiciously like Sein and GW. They group recognizes the original Gorilla Warrior as Kraft, the elf they met during the winter, but not even Frieren knows who the Sein lookalike might be.

When they were young, Sein and his buddy came across a matching statue in their own village, and noted the same similarities. GW took his new name from Kraft’s jacked appearance, and promised that he wouldn’t be forgotten like those ancient heroes. The visiting Heiter gently admonishes him, saying that even heroes like Himmel will one day be lost to time, but GW is undeterred.

That longing to be remembered and have a legacy that outlasts you is strong, especially in our culture, which places such weight on fame and fortune. Few names live on into the ages, and fewer stories remain intact in the retelling. Episode 12 already touched on this with how Himmel’s story has already been changed less than 30 years after his death. Like the memory of those we care for, the legacy we leave behind is something we all have to consider as we go through life, and I’m glad that Frieren chose to acknowledge it using its fictional viewpoint. It may be sad or even scary, but it’s important for art to confront these themes, even as a small part of a larger whole.

Summary:

This was another fabulous episode to watch and review. It offers the humor and charming in-between scenes I really enjoy, while supported by the strong subjects that the show keeps playing with. It ends with Sein realizing that in order to pursue his friend, he may need to part ways with Frieren, Fern, and Stark, and the final closeup of his face shows how pained this makes him. I’m excited to see what becomes of our crew, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next episode!

P.S. The episode also included a great bit of detail that I couldn’t include earlier.

Apparently bronze can be cleaned by magic, but marble can’t? Is there something special about metal and how it reacts to mana, or are certain types of stone resistant to it? Will this ever come back as more than a cursory detail? Probably not, but if it does, I will leap out of my seat in excitement!

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