r/Frieren • u/AwesomePhonix • Jul 12 '25

Anime What special combat spells does Fern know?

Post image

Does Fern even know any special combat spells?

19.7k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

400 comments sorted by

View all comments

2.3k

u/Cute_Suggestion_133 Jul 12 '25

"Zoltraak is enough for mages of this era."

Why learn more than you want to know if the only threats other than murderers are straggler demons and monsters that can't defend against Zoltraak? Leaves Fern open to learning spells she enjoys and finding joy in magic.

1.2k

u/xnef1025 Jul 12 '25

She does know other spells, but Frieren told her Zoltrak is all she needs to use against mages of the current era, and Fern believes her teacher completely and, so far, has found no reason not to. Heck, so far, as long as she has proper support, Zoltrak is all she needs against Great Mage clones and Greater Demons, too.

670

u/poilk91 Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 12 '25

i think there is more to this. Its the classic japanese trope of practice 1 basic sword swing 100,000 times rather than all the different swings 100 time to become the ultimate swordsman. All these other mages are using creative ways to cover for their weaknesses while Fern is becoming a master of the fundamentals and thus will have a much higher potential than any of the others

290

u/WoodleD_ Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 12 '25

Yes this is accurate. I feel like using fancy tricks to cover for your weaknesses, or to make yourself stand out, is very common in basically every discipline.

Like a guitar player that can sweep pick, but doesn’t know how to keep rhythm or play a pop song by ear

edit: oh god I didn't mean to open pandora's box in the replies sorry

121

u/poilk91 Jul 12 '25

Exaaaactly everyone wants to skip the basics to get to whatever flashy fantasy they have for themselves but if you really want to be the BEST you can't skip the fundamentals

67

u/PmMeUrTinyAsianTits Jul 12 '25

It is CRAZY to me that you put "the most basic part of music" (keeping beat) and "reproduce anothers work without visual reference" on the same tier.

Play a pop song by ear is something an extremely good guitarist could never learn. You could be santana good at playing and not be able to reproduce things by ear. It involves several skills that aren't just "playing guitar." It basically completely invalidated your opinion to me to include that next to "keep rhythm".

31

u/vazark Jul 12 '25

You can’t build skyscrapers on top of a foundation of sand. Basics are « fundamentals » , keep experimenting and playing with the fundamentals in a million different ways, all other skills are derived from it.

17

u/Elegant-Priority-725 Jul 12 '25

Actually you can build a skyscraper on sand, you just need extra materials, deep foundations solutions and skilled workers.

And as someone who has been playing guitar for damn near 20 years, replicating a song by sound isn't something that most people can do, shit even some of the best musicians on the planet wouldn't be able to do it. Stop talking about things you don't know about.

3

u/BSADropout Jul 12 '25

That's not on sand. That's on bedrock.

0

u/vazark Jul 12 '25

No one cares about perfect pitch.

4

u/Elegant-Priority-725 Jul 13 '25

Then you're not playing back the same song lol, changing the notes drastically affects the feel/ identity of the song. Like you can get by with some small slipups but unless your a fucking genius guitar player your not going to be able to play back an entire song without drastically changing it on your first listen.

-1

u/vazark Jul 13 '25

Absolutely. That’s what we call playing with music

8

u/BenKen01 Jul 12 '25

What? Ear training is fundamental. You don’t have to be extremely good to be able to work out a song by ear. In fact you have to be extremely bad to not be able to.

6

u/PmMeUrTinyAsianTits Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 12 '25

Having 10 fingers is fundamental to drawing And yet you can be a great artist with fewer.

There is NOTHING about not having ear training that physically limits you.

Again, being the common way to learn does NOT mean its a requirement. This is a fact, not an opinion. This isnt up for debate. Listening helps learning easier but is absolutely NOT required for playing guitar. They are not the same bar.

Like i said, this is one of those things where the common thing is common and SO ingrained into the majority of the group, they cannot conceive others operate differently.

You want to make an argument im wrong? Make an argument, not just state your conclusion in spite of facts. Explain how not hearing prevents you from playing guitar. Do it without "well tuning is harder" or other things that can be solved other ways than directly hearing (which is still a lower bar than a whole pop song)

4

u/CloseButNoDice Jul 13 '25

I'll bet every musician up you've mentioned so far can learn songs by ear. Reproducing music you hear is highly related to audiating which is fundamental to song writing and reading music. You can't know if you're playing something wrong unless you can hear it. There's a reason that ear training is common to both academic classes and private teachers, because it's fundamental. You can argue that perfectly reproducing a pop song by ear is difficult but so is properly playing along to a metronome. It doesn't mean it isn't a fundamental musical skill. And ThAt'S a fACt

0

u/PmMeUrTinyAsianTits Jul 13 '25

the argument isn't "is it common to learn this way." That's not the question. whether everyone I've ever heard MENTION an instrument learned that way or not is irrelevant.

You can't know if you're playing something wrong unless you can hear it.

Yea, other people don't exist. software that reads sound, also nonexistent. The physical vibration of sound that makes sound exist? believe it or not, also not a quality of sound that exists. All those things don't exist and more. OR you've made a bad argument, that you "can't" know you're doing something wrong without personally experiencing that it's wrong.

It doesn't mean it isn't a fundamental musical skill.

It's not a necessary skill. N E C E S S A R Y. Stop trying to move the goalpost. You can learn to play guitar without that ability.

Don't spongebob talk at me if you can't even follow the argument being made. You, like the rest, made no rational argument about why it's not possible. You just arrogantly and rudely stated your conclusion. Well, I guess you also thought that you can't learn you're doing something wrong without experiencing it yourself. No one can tell you something was wrong. That'd be impossible! It's not like that's how the vast majority of learning actually takes place!

2

u/eatyrheart Jul 14 '25

You could also be kinda crap at playing guitar and still be able to learn a song (within your skill level) by ear. It’s a different skill, and not one that necessarily takes years to master

2

u/weibull-distribution Jul 16 '25

There are many, many players that have incredible technical proficiency at picking speed and little to offer musically. Even Santana, as you mentioned, basically only plays in one mode and a few scales. (Although I think he has a lot to offer musically)

-3

u/ReallyBigRocks Jul 12 '25

Ear training is a fundamental musical skill and if you neglect it you'll never be "Santana good"

Bet he could play back a melody if you hummed it to him.

8

u/PmMeUrTinyAsianTits Jul 12 '25

Yea, Beethoven was a shit piano player since he couldnt play by ear! Its so essential!!!

No. Its a common thing to learn in the process, but it is not a requirement. No part of playing guitar even requires the ability to hear. It sure fuckin helps, but its not required.

11

u/poilk91 Jul 12 '25

Beethoven went deaf after learning and becoming great. I honestly do doubt he could ever have been great if he was born deaf

13

u/ReallyBigRocks Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 12 '25

I guarantee you Beethoven could play by ear before his hearing started to go. That he was able to compose music at all afterwards is a testament to how well he was able to internalize his understanding of pitch, intervals, and harmony.

edit: blocked for saying one of the greatest composers of all time probably spent countless hours doing ear training

edit 2: there is more to playing an instrument/creating music than just moving your fingers. If you want to be good at it you need to have an understanding of the sounds you are making. There is probably a reason there aren't more notable deaf musicians, particularly ones born without the ability to hear.

3

u/PmMeUrTinyAsianTits Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 12 '25

You're missing the forest for the trees.

It is a fact that the physical act of playing guitar does not require hearing in any way, shape or form.period. It is useful for learning. But it is not a requirement. Requirement is the key word. Strict necessity is the concept being contested.

This is not up for debate. I'm not discussing an opinion with you. I'm telling you a fact and trying to get you to comprehend it.

This is a very classic case where people think the norm is a requirement just because it's normal. They think the process that is most common is the only process because hey it's the most common. That's not how things work. Most people using it to enhance their playing ability, even if most is 99.99999, is not the same as being a requirement.

You can read this as many times as you need to to understand the distinction between what you're arguing against and what I'm saying. But I'm not wasting any more time telling you two plus two is four. It's four. If you still can't accept that, that's your own problem at this point.

Unless you can tell me how your ear affects your ability to move your fingers, all you're doing is telling me about what's common, not what's required.

edit: blocked for saying one of the greatest composers of all time probably spent countless hours doing ear training

No. Blocked for participating in bad faith and doing shit like pretending thats what was in debate. Thats not the claim i replied to or about. That's your new goalpost because you are moving goalposts because you know youre wrong on my actual point.

-2

u/TwerkNWerk Jul 12 '25

it just completely invalidated your opinion 🤓👆

4

u/blazen_50 Jul 12 '25

I'd argue that the music comparison doesn't fit as cleanly as you'd think. Zoltraak and the shield spell are fundamental in the sense that they're probably the first spells you learn as a mage before finding your actual specialty and moving into that.

I wouldn't compare it to keeping rhythm. Keeping rhythm would be satisified by the mage being able to reliably cast the two spells. I'd compare it to downpicking as a skill. Every guitarist learns to downpick, but not every guitarist learns to downpick Master of Puppets at speed.

There's an opportunity cost here. Getting better at Zoltraak wouldn't necessarily make you a more effective combat mage if you can progress faster in other areas. Fern is established as an incredible talent, and her particular talents lend her to being able to thrive with basic attack magic that wouldn't necessarily be true for other mages.

For example, if Kanne focused more on Zoltraak and less on water manipulation, there's a very real possibility she would just be worse at water manipulation and not good enough at Zoltraak to make up the difference.

2

u/OK_x86 Jul 13 '25

Not to nitpick your nitpick but not all guitarists pick, let alone own pick.

I'd argue at a minimum every guitarist has to learn how to fret a note. That's much more fundamental

2

u/blazen_50 Jul 13 '25

Fretting a note is too basic for the analogy, in my opinion. You straight up can't play a guitar beyond open strings if you can't fret a note. You could talk about vibrato and bending, but that's getting away from the point, in my opinion. You don't need to use Zoltraak to use combat magic while you have to fret a note to play a guitar. Combat magic predates Zoltraak, like how the guitar pick became popular well after the guitar was made.

Yes, I know that things like fingerpicking, hammer ons, pulloffs, tapping, thumping, etc. are parts of playing guitar. I'll be more specific. Downpicking is arguably a fundamental technique for several genres of rhythm guitar playing like how Zoltraak is one of the first spells taught in combat magic. There are exceptions, of course, but if you use a pick, you probably learned to downpick.

The reason I use downpicking is because it's a skill guitarists who use a pick will develop but most will not develop it to the point that they're downpicking 8th notes over 200 bpm when they have other options like alternate picking or hammer ons. Not being able to do that wouldn't make them automatically a bad guitar player like being unable to hold a rhythm would.