The Great Mage Flamme🔗
I've recently watched through the first season of the anime Frieren. It's got good characters and fantastic world building. In the show there's a character called Flamme who was the main character Frieren's teacher 1000 years before the events of the main story. I've not read the manga and only seen the anime once, so my apologies for factual inaccuracies or any hard miss-reads of scenes.
In the anime, Flamme is sometimes described as having ideas that are "odd". She would say things like "A kiss blown from afar could be used as a special attack" or "Giving a potion that dissolves clothes would make men happy". How she presents and interacts with others, however, is clearly someone who cares. I believe how she acts and how she uses her her magic really shows off who she is as a person.
Her Magic🔗
In the human world, magic is seen as a "demon's technique", so the fact that she uses and loves magic makes her an outcast from the other humans.
I think a good example of how she expresses herself through magic is her suppression of her own aura. In a world overrun and ruled by demons, this kind of magic is considered to be cowardly and a mockery of magic by those that practice it. While this type of magic is sometimes used by demons when they wish to remain stealthy, the strength of a demon's aura is seen as a status symbol among their peers. It is used to show how powerful they are to other demons and therefore they see no value in wasting time learning how to suppress their own aura or waste their own power doing so. This means that when demons meet Flamme, they see her as a mage and therefore worthy of fighting, but they also underestimate her. Demons are unable to comprehend the possibility that a human could be stronger than them, or that anyone would not show the unquestionable status and power symbol that is your own aura.
The other side of that coin is when she meets someone who isn't a demon. When she meets someone who isn't hostile or is a friend, the fact that she seems to be have a smaller and weaker aura allows them to be comfortable around her. She is not seen as a threat by friend or foe, and this is part of her strength.
Another magic she uses creates a protective shield around living things. There's a scene where Flamme is talking to Frieren while walking through snow. She takes a moment to stop and cast a protective shield spell on a small sapling to protect it from the cold. It's then implied that 1000 years later, when main plot it happening, that sapling has grown into a giant tree at the centre of a small city whose barrier has grown and is still impenetrable by demons.
How do I see Flamme?🔗
I think how the character is portrayed shows her humility and self-expression in a really beautiful way. She demonstrates how these qualities can be used by someone who has real power. My interpretation of Flamme is that she truly believes in the power of being kind, of being humble, and sharing what is worth sharing. I believe she holds these values so deeply that it truly doesn't matter to her if she's there to see the good she creates.
Flamme could never see the city that became possible from just a few moments of her kindness a millennium ago. She could never see the protection that humility has afforded to Fern. She could never see the age of humans that she set into motion.
All that being said, she is a bit of an oddball. Whenever Frieren says something weird about relationships, it's probably Flamme that she heard it from. She's odd in not only in that she says and does things that are odd, but she's also odd because she goes against the grain of what human's idea of what magic is. Magic is not a means to power for her, or some act of rebellion. It's a form of self-expression that is sacred to her.
She's also odd in that she goes against the demon's idea of power. She doesn't strengthen her magic so that she can become as powerful as possible, she does so because she loves magic and wants to share this joy with the world.
I think her love for magic and willingness to express herself makes her a very interesting character. She is ultimately responsible for the age of humans, but she didn't get here through compromise. She didn't sit down with her fellow humans and say "just how much magic is OK?" or "Maybe if I start by getting stronger now, I can share that power later" or "How can I convince people that magic can be good?". Instead she embraced what she loves and what she can do.
How do I map this to real life?🔗
In the world of Frieren, demons only really value power. They value having power, building power, and showing their power. This maps nicely within my brain to those who value money, to those who value having money, getting money, and showing off that money.
When Flamme lived, demons ruled the world and humans were cowering from them, but what humans valued was a sense of community. The humans in the time of Flamme held the opinion "we don't need money, we have each other". What Flamme doesn't do is come to some sort of compromise. She doesn't ask how much community can be sacrificed for magic/money. She doesn't try to be some genius that knows how to find the best middle ground.
She is unapologetically different.
The Village's Daughter🔗
I'm going to ask for a little favour from you the reader. I'm asking for you to come on a short journey with me as I start to tell a tale.
Imagine a small village. It's not large by most definitions of the word, only a couple hundred people in total. After school the kids play in the park and each week there's a farmer's market in the village square. Growing up surrounded by this caring community is little Lilly.
Lilly is fascinated by mechanisms and contractions. She once spent an entire month playing around in the woods with fallen logs and branches. Some people thought she was playing some very lonely game of seesaw, but in reality she was spending that time discovering for herself how pivots and leverage work.
She sits down for dinner that night, says her thanks, and digs in to the small plate of food in front of her. Her mum, Julia, sits down and before starting to eat herself she asks Lilly "So, what've you been up to today?".
"I've been wanting to go to the city". There's silence for a moment as Julia spends the rest of her mouthful thinking about what to say next.
"They're evil in the city. Soulless. If they could turn every mouth they feed into an automaton, they would". "I know, I know, but it's cool, isn't it? The way how they use the wind to make flour, or how they use steam to make light". Julia smiled. It wasn't worth arguing it further, Lilly had made her mind up about how she felt a long time ago.
A few days later they both made their way to the farmer's market. There wasn't much on sale as usual. Julia started talking to one of the farmers, maybe buttering him up enough to let her buy the final few cabbages left. Lilly was already running off to play.
She found a little spot behind a few trees and bushes that allowed her to look out into the market without being seen herself. She buried herself in the leaves and from her hiding spot started inspecting the farmer's stalls. She was imagining different ways that they could be moved. Rolling logs? Maybe a wheel? She thinks she may have seen one of those when a city person came here last. For the rest of the day she happily lived in her imagination.
Now, reader, I'm asking for you to imagine that you were going to continue writing this story. Imagine the ending of the story was that Lilly found a way to bring automation to the village without falling to the pitfalls of the evil city. What qualities would Lilly have in that story? How would she need to grow as the story progressed?
If I were writing that story, Lilly would embody many of the themes and ideas that I believe Flamme does. As the story progressed, her growth as a character would be shown through her empathy with those around her. The ones that disagree with her, the ones that love her, and the ones who would wish to see her fail.
My story of her wouldn't be one of compromise.