Demon in Friere do not represent another etnhie, they represent nobility.
But Frieren's reasons arent based on the nature of Demons being evil by default? Which somehow is rooted on demons being unable to feel empathy which fits under a darwinian explanation. Unless there are spoilers about what is the true deal with the demons.
It's equated to social class, where the uper class can't sympathize with the lower class du to living in an Ivory tower.
There a reason why people critize politician for being disconnect for reality.
Plus if her hate for deamon was really a racist thing, what etchnicity they represent, not mention why Frieren is not hatefull toward human/dwarf and herself is one of the last represented of her species ? If Frieren was really aboot painting racism has a good thing she would not befriend non-elf people.
Demons as metaphor for social class kind of falls apart when you have a raggedy demon girl with dead parents, taken in by a middle-to-low-class family, who lives as their daughter for a time then heartlessly slaughters them. Like, the story goes out of its way to say that demons' behavior isn't a result of their upbringing, privilege or environment and that no amount of kindness can change them -- they're just kind of intrinsically sociopaths who (Frieren says) should be slaughtered in their cribs.
Also, a fantasy species doesn't need to be directly analogous to a specific ethnicity to be racially charged. "Infiltrators who exploit our charity and decency in order to murder our innocent children in their beds" is a pretty common racist canard -- accusing people of being amoral animals, unlike civilized people on some fundamental level, which makes it okay to murder them, colonize their countries, etc.
@verifiably Sound more like class metaphore with how young noble/bourgeois are raise to do anything to raise their statue, including manipilating othr people and incapable of emphatie toward lesser one and just pretend to care aboot them, so they give them more fame/money/vote/loyauty/ect.
Demons as metaphor for social class kind of falls apart when you have a raggedy demon girl with dead parents, taken in by a middle-to-low-class family, who lives as their daughter for a time then heartlessly slaughters them. Like, the story goes out of its way to say that demons' behavior isn't a result of their upbringing, privilege or environment and that no amount of kindness can change them -- they're just kind of intrinsically sociopaths who (Frieren says) should be slaughtered in their cribs.
Unless you forgot, demons do not have parents in the series. Her claim of having parents was always just a lie to make humans not kill her or lower their defenses. Demons literally come into existence on their own by themselves, so the idea of childcare and parenting are alien concepts to them. She even states herself as she is dying she doesn't know what it is, outside that claiming she had parents were magic words that stopped humans from trying to kill her.
Unless you forgot, demons do not have parents in the series. Her claim of having parents was always just a lie to make humans not kill her or lower their defenses. Demons literally come into existence on their own by themselves, so the idea of childcare and parenting are alien concepts to them. She even states herself as she is dying she doesn't know what it is, outside that claiming she had parents were magic words that stopped humans from trying to kill her.
Given that fact, the social class metaphor makes less sense, not more. They're bougie nobility, but they have no actual relationships with one another, their wealth isn't inherited, and all they have is what they earn through their own efforts? Isn't part of the notion of class consciousness/divide that the wealthy rely on nepotism and cronyism rather than their own labors in order to maintain their power?
Setting aside the question of whether this is a racist narrative, I'll admit, I also find that aspect of demons sympathetic in a weird way – after all, the demons are far worse off than humans and other sentient species. They have no social organization, they have no relationships, they kill each other practically on sight (or at least have to constantly worry about killing each other), and one of the primary tools people use to build functional, healthy societies where people get what they need – i.e. empathy and cooperation for its own sake – is supposed to be fundamentally beyond their reach. I can't help but imagine the resentment they must feel for the species who get neurology that lets them behave ethically and succeed at civilization-building, for free. Imagine having to teach yourself a simulacrum of empathy in order to succeed in a world that near-universally wants you dead! Being in enemy territory literally no matter where you go! People acting like your extermination is a moral necessity!
(Something, something, neurodivergence, too. Demons are supposed to be Broken In The Head such that their speech is just a rote, mechanical imitation of real, warm human/elven/dwarven feelings, which can be safely ignored; plenty of high support needs autistic folks have been accused of the same thing.)
The neurodivergence angle might be a closer metaphor than the class one :
It's shown several times in the story after the First-Class Mage Exam arc that the oldest demons tend to become obsessed by trying to understand what is this "empathy" thing that other races feel, because they realized that their species reached an evolutionary dead end, that the only thing that kept them together functioning as some kind of civilization was the Demon King's power that kept them in line and able to work as a coherent force against the other races, and that it's only a question of time before they all get exterminated, especially since the Demon King's death. The thing is that no matter how much they try, they never manage to understand it, no matter how much time they spend among humans, and sooner or later their instincts make them kill them.
And it's revealed that chiefly among those elder demons trying to understand empathy was the Demon King himself, and that his goal behind the war against the other races was to capture humans to experiment on them and try to understand what is empathy. Frieren and the Hero's party knew about it, but came to the conclusion that he would had exterminated all of humanity in his research before managing to understand it.
There's a wider plot that's starting to emerge about the demons and their attempts to understand empathy in order to ensure the survival of their species, and I'm ready to bet that at some point one of them will manage to do it.
The neurodivergence angle might be a closer metaphor than the class one :
There's a wider plot that's starting to emerge about the demons and their attempts to understand empathy in order to ensure the survival of their species, and I'm ready to bet that at some point one of them will manage to do it.
Tragic irony dictates that the last demon will "get it" in their final moments.
