Heiter Quotes

Frieren has just asked whether he is afraid of dying, and Heiter answers with a joke about collecting his reward. It fits the part he plays all chapter, the corrupt priest whose drinking is catching up with him, and Frieren answers in kind: "You corrupt priest." Chapter 2 takes the joke apart. Twenty years later, asking Frieren to decipher a grimoire said to hold spells of resurrection and immortality, Heiter gives two reasons: back then he didn't want to show her his weakness, and now he is more afraid of dying (p. 48). So the brag was a costume, worn in front of the one companion for whom, as someone in the party remarks (the balloon has no tail), fifty or a hundred years is nothing (p. 16). The line is funny, and it is a concealment. Read after chapter 2, the goodbye joke is Heiter deciding what she should see.

The request sounds modest, and the chapter lets it double as a pretext. Heiter hands Frieren the grimoire of Ewig the Sage, rumored to contain spells of resurrection and immortality, then asks her to teach Fern magic on the side while she works. When she finishes, the book holds nothing of the kind, and Heiter is unsurprised: if such spells existed, Ewig himself would have used them. Fern, meanwhile, has become a mage who will not slow Frieren down, and Frieren says it outright: "You tricked me, Heiter." The obvious objection is that the fear was invented for the con. The pages refuse that. He calls the fear of death unfathomable, and asks her to leave with Fern that night so the girl does not lose someone again. The trick worked because the fear was real. The time he asked for went to Fern.

Tomorrow is the party's first dragon fight, and Himmel asks Eisen whether he is scared. Eisen says yes, and Himmel, who meant to steady him, admits he is scared too. The pep talk collapses. Eisen says he feels less nervous now thanks to him anyway; Himmel apologizes that it did not go as planned, since he had meant to mimic another adventurer and encourage everyone. Heiter turns the failure into a method and tells him he can just act like himself. This is the corrupt priest of chapter 1, playing the adult at the campfire. It fits the Heiter of chapter 2 as well, who got Fern trained by arranging a situation rather than delivering a speech. The advice has a second audience. Frieren recalls it while listening to Kanne, and her conclusion, "It sure seems different for each person," is Heiter's sentence arriving decades late in the mouth of the one party member who was only watching.