(Hated Trope) "Kind" slave owners

[u/KusanagiGundam]

Speaking as an American who has studied the civil war all throughout my school years, this trope infuriates me to no end. There is no such thing as a kind slave master because slavery itself is cruel and inhumane. PEOPLE ARE NOT PROPERTY!

Naofumi (Shield Hero): Prime example of this trope. He enslaves multiple (underage) girls and an whole village and the fans still say he's a hero.

Rudeus (Jobless Reincarnation): As if being a pedo wasn't bad enough he had to buy a slave in season 2. Worse is that people still defend his actions.

Song of The South (Disney): Possibly the OG example of this trope. And the reason why Disney will never release it again.

[u/Sharles_Davis_Kendy]

It would have been SO easy to be like “He had to resort to some dark shit when he was in the gutter but now he doesn’t need that anymore” but noooooooo… The girls like their slave crest. They fucking love it!

So stupid.

[u/LucarioOfLegends → u/Sharles_Davis_Kendy]

It's so frustrating cause you absolutely understand Naofumi when he first bought Raphtalia. Betrayed and ostracized by people he trusted, and now left with genuinely the worst option since he just can't deal damage and progress without an additional party member. As well as later when telling a hesitating Raphtalia in very blunt terms "I don't want to use this crest, you don't want me to, but I bought you to be my sword and I really need you to be that sword." He has to be a realist because his options are so thin.

First two episodes of Shield Hero are like, genuinely good show. And then everything goes down the shitter because Stockholm Syndrome and pragmatism apparently means capitalism and slavery.

[u/Sharles_Davis_Kendy → u/LucarioOfLegends]

The fact that he fights for the right to keep his slaves is just batshit crazy.

Him making the “well it’s legal here” while making societal changes in other area is infuriating.

All could be solved by just keeping the girls but removing the crests. They don’t even serve a story purpose.

[u/Thin-Nerve6367 → u/Sharles_Davis_Kendy]

Tbf in Season 2 Rapthalia loses the crest permanently when she becomes a hero

[u/Vaivaim8 → u/Thin-Nerve6367]

Yeah and he immediately went into panic mode because he thought that freedom meant raphtalia would leave him.

Side note, it was also really weird that they convinced Rishia to become his slave, to the point where she begged him to put a slave crest on her. That whole scene was genuinely messed up but they tried to pass it off as comedy

[u/Thin-Nerve6367 → u/Vaivaim8]

The first part is understandable because A he was so traumatized that he physically couldn't trust people and B he was under the effects of the Curse Series which caused that distrust to be amplified even FURTHER.

The anime did a poor job at that. It really did. In the novel it's talked about how Itsuki forced her to level shit she wasn't good at at ALL. Her stats were so completely and utterly fucked that there was no choice but for her to reset to level 1, and since she HAD to do that, the only way she was going to get a significant power boost was by taking advantage of the Slaver Shield giving slaves massive stat boosts when they level up - something ONLY Naofumi has access to, not a single other person could access to the Slaver Shield - and it's pretty much agreed that the moment she hits max level Naofumi himself would remove it, or if she thinks she doesn't need it anymore she can remove it too.

Whereas the anime is just "hey! Wanna be a slave!?" It also completely ignores a VITAL piece of information; Naofumi, upon getting a new slave gets a box of checklists that he can allow the slaves to do. When he gets Risha as a slave he actually tries to unmark all the boxes, but the system forces him to choose one (which at this point any slave he gets he only marks that they can't hurt him iirc) and for Risha he believed her, but his massive amount of trust issues only checked one box, she couldn't lie to him

[u/PeterAnthony_Jackson → u/[deleted]]

Hey green hair girl, get a slave crest, it has wicket stat boosts.

[u/Vega_Kotes → u/LucarioOfLegends]

I feel very similar about Re:Monster. Like the first 14 or 15 chapters where he's a goblin and even somewhat Hobgoblin is some actually interesting shit and then as soon as he hits Ogre form it all goes immediately to shit.
And only gets worse from there.