Frieren is a mage

Question

Frieren is a mage

My understanding of the magic in Frieren is that it's all based off of "visualization" or "imagination"
Basically a mage has to imagine their mana manifesting in a specific way to cast spells and their limits are their minds/imaginations. For example, a mage who specializes in water magic, like that one dyke, has to imagine her mana manipulating the water in her environment to achieve a specific end goal, such as being balled up and launched at a dude full force. Frieren said herself, "can you imagine defeating a water-specialized mage in the rain? I can't." This is because the water mage is at such a high advantage there is literally no way to manifest your own mana to counter it. Similarly, this is what makes a mage like ubel so threatening. She's so retarded that there are no actual limits for her because her brain doesnt imagine something can't be cut. When that test happened and the other mage visualized nothing cutting through his cloak, every other mage was unable to do so either until ubels retarded brain just said, "but that's just cloth tho lol" and so she manifested her magic to cut through his cloth and body. She's basically the bottom end of the bell curve.
Now, coming to zoltrakk and freiren, zoltrakk is the purest form of magic because it is essentially imagining the basic form of mana manifesting as itself in the form of a laser. Immediately it got adapted into a sheild form. But the idea is that it's pure mana being launched rather than the more complicated extra steps of making your mana manipulate the rocks and stuff around you. However the important things about this visualization is that there are 3 parts to it. The beginning, which is just the current state, the middle, which is what the mana is manifesting as, and the end, which is the result of said spell. In ubels case for example, it's

guy has a cloak > my mana can cut that cloak cause it's just fabric > guy is cut in half.

For any rock-type mage it would be

im on the ground > my mana can lift the rock im standing on > I can now climb onto my roof to clean my gutters

The basic zoltrakk is

there is a demon before me > my mana is a laser aimed at his retarded head > he no longer has a head

All of this to say that the reason fern and freiren are able to go toe to toe with most people is because theyve mastered the most raw form of magic.
Everyone else adds a bunch of extra steps and stipulations, which may benefit them against others also play with those mods, but when it came down to it, the most effective thing was to just keep blasting because you have more mana reserves than anyone else and everyone else is wasting theirs on manipulating the environment around them. Good job launching a bunch of rocks at me, retard. You're figuratively out of ammo and I haven't even begun yet.
All of this all of this to say that Frieren's PIN move is the coolest shit in the world because she essentially removes the middle step of the visualization. Instead of needing to manifest her mana into a lazer, or imagine it as a gust of wind pinning the demon king to a wall, she uses her mana directly, without visualization of the process, to achieve the end goal. Basically

I am in grave danger > YOU are now against the wall.

What happened to fern was instantaneous and undetectable because it bypasses the established and widely known "rules" of how it works. THAT is the purest form of magic and Frieren-sama is fucking cool as shit bros

I agree that Frieren is cool and cute

That's a neat way of thinking about the telekinetic move the copy used.

Ubel is less threatening than she seems, she's basically just min-maxing that particular spell. The upper limit of Reelseiden specifically is "anything the mage can properly visualize", which is different from the imagination limit of magic generally. These two distinct issues are often conflated into one, which leads people to think Ubel is breaking rules and can do anything because she's crazy and not limited by logic, but that is incorrect.
Ubel does have limits, just like every other mage she is constrained to the rules of each spell and you can see this with the binding spell Sorganeil which is limited by something more concrete, requiring the mage to see their opponent's entire body.
Every mage has strengths and weaknesses, the magic system is compared to rock paper scissors because there is no set best type of magic and a counter for anything either already exists or could be developed.

tl;dr youtu.be/6hlAjt3eiAY?t=106

Reposting something from earlier today that i thought was an interesting theory about that

the "height of magic" that Frieren practices is essentially magical superconductivity.

Mages can sense when another mage casts a spell, which reveals their position. Why? Because when a spell is cast, mana is expended. Some amount of mana is released, expended as part of the spell. Like gunpowder burning and leaving smoke behind after the bullet is fired, or electrical wires radiating heat from the power running through them. Entropy at work.

But what do Frieren and Fern and Serie all practice? Hiding your mana. Restricting it. Containing it. Making your mana invisible to others to deceive them. What if you could apply this same principal not just to your mana reserve, but to your mana in the air? To a spell in motion?

You would, by all appearances, be casting *invisible magic*. Stealth wizardry. A magical effect happens, but with no indication of mana being used in defiance of all of the magical senses of the target. It requires a complete and total mastery of the mana in the spell such that you eliminate all of the entropy in the casting, but the target gets no warning of the attack and can't even perceive the spell while it is active and thus is powerless to fight back because their brain keeps telling them that no magic is happening to fight back against.

Man the fern x stark ova was wild

dude i love grimoires

except you can just imagine whatever the grimoire says without reading it and it'll work lol

the thigh fucking was peak, absolute peak

You can't though, the imagination aspect is just "you need to believe in yourself to succeed" not a key to instantly do anything. Mages still need to learn specific spells to do specific things, they need to have enough mana to use those spells, and they need to believe in themselves too.

The techniques of manipulating the mana to elicit the outcome is important, but you still need to *understand* the outcome enough to visualize it for it to succeed. Thats all the visualization does.

Think of it like painting. You can have all of the *technical skill* needed to paint a picture, but you fundamentally cannot paint something specific that you can't picture in your head.

So what happens if I imagine myself having baby making sex with Fern?

It wont happen unless she imagines it, too and you both act upon it

Maplestar is on another level

Does "acting upon it" include filling her baby maker with my man jam?

you are way over thinking it anon
it's the power of belief

ubel is on the border between autism and genius because if she believes she can cut it, it will be cut
clothes can be cut because she watched her sister cut them, it is natural
hair can be cut because everyone cuts their hair, it is natural
she might struggle against the demon king
until he goes "after i kill you im gonna get a haircut"
then she'll insta win

demons basically wear their heart on their sleeve. they cant hide their mana/power level so you can say they cant hide what they believe

humans can suppress/hide their mana, which is very handy
but the same self deception that lets them suppress their mana also creates self limiting beliefs that cap their power level

wtf so frieren mages are like the dnd 5e paladin? damn
I was expecting something much more academic and mathematical or something

There is another way in the series too.
Imagination and visualization helps, but every magic has a formula attached to it. Even without proper visualization, one can use the spell if they know the theory behind it.

How do I learn the spell to take off ferns clothes?

autism and genius

That describes Frieren. Ubel is the opposite.

Ubel can not only cut but bypass causality.

My understanding of the magic in Frieren is that it's all based off of "visualization" or "imagination"

It's super simple, to be a great mage in this world you need both the knowledge of spells (and how to cast them) but also be able to imagine yourself casting them.
One is really just experience and the other innate talent, so you can be a mage with either but the greatest mages needs both which is why the long lived elves make for such great mages

invisible magic

Anon, they're suppressing their mana, they're not making their mana invisible.
The reason why frieren can goes toe to toe with most mages is simply because she's experienced on fighting demon mages.
While for fern, she's the fastest at casting spell. Mages simply couldn't win again her because they could'nt made enough small protective spell to counter her zoltrak spam, so they have to make full protective spell and loose mana in the process.
People forget that ubel couldn't cut protective spell, because even with severe autism, she acknowledged it as a spell that protect her from magic attack.
Fern can easily just defeate her.

Wife privileges

why's she so dejected here? i can't remember what happened before this panel other than that they got caught

It's simple, anon.

the rope made you unable to use magic

it's a rope, you can cut it

Now, guess which fact that matter to an autist who loves cutting shit?

She was blinded I think, maybe mana blind as well?

Because, she finally realized how fucked up her brain is.
She knew that the rope made her unable to use magic, but, because it's a rope, she can just cut it.

Fern can easily just defeate her.

Doubt it, the magic special forces thought Ubel to be a particular threat to them, saying that she reminded them of Captain Fräse. The person Macht thought was so dangerous he needed to change tact and kill on site.
To them Fern is just another mage.

Nah, Fern wins.

thanks anon
as an aside, how does Ubel do it? She's attractive as fuck, is it the eyes? She's a tier above everyone else in the cast.

You're asking the wrong man. She doesn't do much for me.

To them Fern is just another mage.

And that's how fern will win.
Here's the facts.
You can't out spell casting fern because she's the fastest at casting spell.
Protective spell is the ultimate defense and not even uble can cut it.
And to top it all, so far, there's only one person who realized that fern is suppressing her mana, it was a demon and that because he's wondering why fern mana barely decreased after spamming zoltrak.

Eyes + playfulness + outfit = pure sex

Frierens magical power is based on cuteness, hence her nonsensical explanation of how her magical powers work.

no paizuri

It's shit.

Why

demons basically wear their heart on their sleeve. they cant hide their mana/power level so you can say they cant hide what they believe

Not quite. Demons are capable of hiding their mana, but they would never do so before another mage, because as Flamme says, their social hierarchy is based on how much magical power one has. So they’ll hide their mana temporarily, but doing so permanently, the way that Frieren and others do, would be actively detrimental to their social standing. iirc, Flamme specifically likens it to a king sneaking out of his palace dressed as a beggar to spy on his enemies, as opposed to a king voluntarily giving all of his money away to live as a beggar.

Seeing this gif without the text is weird lol