Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Episode 9 Review

The Scales of Obedience

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Episode 9 explained Aura the Guillotine’s magic. As I successfully predicted in my review of Episode 8, she controls puppets. But, what I didn’t predict is how she creates her puppets. Though, I’d be surprised if anyone predicted that.

Aura uses the Scales of Obedience to turn people into puppets. I was wondering why she was carrying a set of scales. And, now we know. But, how do the Scales of Obedience work? They weigh Aura’s mana capacity against the mana capacity of whoever she’s targeting.

If Aura’s victim has a lower mana capacity than she does, they become her puppet. However, if they have a greater mana capacity than Aura, she becomes their puppet. It’s a high-risk, high-reward ability. But, it’s also very straightforward. It either works for Aura or it doesn’t. There’s no skill involved in using it.

There are three flaws with Aura’s ability. The first and most obvious is that part about it having the potential to backfire on her. Graf Granat said this has never happened in the past 500 years. But, I assume Frieren is about to change that.

Of course, Frieren might not have more mana than Aura. After all, she fought Aura before and Aura isn’t her puppet right now. This is where the second flaw with the ability comes in, though. If Aura doesn’t have the Scales of Obedience, she can’t use her magic. So, Frieren may simply destroy the scales.

The third flaw is that someone with a strong will can resist Aura’s control. They can only resist for a short amount of time. But, someone like Frieren may only need a short amount of time. And, since this was even mentioned at all, it may be relevant.

Linie’s Magic

We only got to see the start of Frieren’s fight against Aura in this episode. But, we got to see two other entire fights. The first one I want to go over is Stark vs. Linie.

Stark is a strong guy who fights with an axe. We’ve known that and there’s not much else to say about him. But, Linie was basically an unknown entity going into this fight. We knew a bit about her, like how she’s good at sensing mana. However, we didn’t know what her combat abilities were.

I assumed that Linie used electricity magic based on what we saw of her in Episode 38. As Fern and Stark were fleeing with Graf Granat, she conjured up an orb of electricity. But, it turns out that her ability is far more complex than that.

Linie’s mana sensing is her main ability that facilitates everything else she does. By observing someone’s mana usage, she can replicate their actions. And, according to her, people even use mana when moving. So, she can replicate the physical movements of people she’s observed.

This is how Linie was able to replicate Eisen’s fighting style. And it’s also how she was able to be proficient with swords, spears, and knives, not just Eisen’s axe. She’s copied the mana of people who excelled with each of those weapons.

The electricity she used in the previous episode is what hints at her ability being very powerful. It implies that she can copy any magic she observes someone using. That would include Lügner’s magic, too, even though we never see her use it.

I guess that means Linie’s magic works the same way the Sharingan does in Naruto. She can copy the magic and movements of others.

Fern vs. Lügner

There were a lot of cool parts in this episode. But, the coolest was when Fern overpowered Lügner. Sure, Lügner has more mana and better control over his mana than Fern does. However, what makes Fern such a formidable opponent is her speed.

Call her Quick-Draw Fern because, apparently, she has the fastest spell-casting around. Her speed at casting spells even surpasses Frieren’s, which is impressive. But, why does speed matter so much? And why is that the only way Fern can compete with otherwise stronger mages?

According to Frieren, Fern will never surpass her in terms of mana capacity and control. And the reason appears to be Frieren’s age. There’s no way for Fern to live that long, so she’ll never reach those mana and control levels.

That also explains why Lügner, a demon who’s lived for at least 80 years, has more mana and control than Fern.

But, I wonder if age is the only factor here. Race could play a role, as well. When I think of fantasy races like elves and demons, them having more mana than humans makes sense. I don’t know if that’s the case in this series, though.

Anyway, Fern’s speed is important because it levels the playing field. If she’s fast enough, her opponent’s superior mana capacity and control don’t matter. Even an unlimited mana capacity won’t help you if Fern already blasted a hole through your chest.

What’s a bit unclear is how Fern came to be so fast. The implication was that Frieren trained her to be fast by having her do all the fighting. But, if that’s all there is to it, why couldn’t Frieren or anyone else train the same way? It seems like Fern has some innate ability.

Final Thoughts

What do you think of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Episode 9? How do you think Frieren is going to defeat Aura? Were you disappointed in how easy it was for Stark to defeat Linie? And, why do you think nobody else can cast spells as fast as Fern? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of Episode 10 is available now.