(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/vangaurd1234523]

Yeah it’s a great subversion of the whole idea of a “good” master. Because no matter how nice he is about it, his slaves aren’t his friends, they’re his property. And when push comes to shove that’s how he ultimately treats them

[u/rllrdr → u/vangaurd1234523]

Unpopular opinion, but I don't like the direction the story went. Instead of tackling the far more difficult stance of "slavery is inherently wrong regardless of how well a master treats his slaves" it instead concludes with "slavery is wrong because the master is secretly a violent asshole as soon as things stop going his way". Well yeah, no shit, even your average slave-owning isekai protag would agree beating your pregnant slave to death is wrong, it flattens any nuance towards "there's no such thing as a good slave owner".

[u/_NotMitetechno_ → u/rllrdr]

The message is more that Ketil is a duplicitous man who believes himself to be moral and good yet when faced with tough choices he ALWAYS takes the easier and more cowardly option, meaning his morals are about as strong as paper. He believes himself to be a moral slave owner yet every time he is challenged to be a "good" slave owner he proves himself incapable of being a "good" slave owner. It goes a way to highlight that the inherent cruelty and power differential of slavery lends itself to exploitation and immoral behaviour. He represents far more than just an immoral slave owner, which ironically is pretty nuanced.

The text shows you how a "good" slave owner is still pretty awful, even absent of Ketil. We see the issues that the slaves face, such as being exploited by the mercenaries for entertainment and how the people who were previously slaves poorly treat Thorfinn + Einar.

I think the story does consider slavery wrong even in the context of its time period. Characters in the story react as people in that time period largely would, even Thorfinn. However the cruelty of slavery as we see it is the same as what happens in the story.

[u/rllrdr → u/_NotMitetechno_]

Yes, I know what Ketil was trying to portray, I just think doing so is the far less complex route to write.

[u/_NotMitetechno_ → u/rllrdr]

How?

[u/rllrdr → u/_NotMitetechno_]

It's easy to portray slavery as wrong when the master beats a pregnant woman to death. It takes far more skill having the master not abuse power difference of slavery, and are still able to portray slavery as wrong.

[u/_NotMitetechno_ → u/rllrdr]

That's already done in text

[u/rllrdr → u/_NotMitetechno_]

Ketil clearly does abuse power difference of slavery. What, slavery is wrong because you might get bullied by third parties? As long as those third parties didn't exist, slavery wouldn't be so bad?

[u/_NotMitetechno_ → u/rllrdr]

You're intentionally being stupid lol

[u/rllrdr → u/_NotMitetechno_]

Whatever you say.

[u/person1880 → u/rllrdr]

Slavery inherently relies on an abuse of the power imbalance to maintain it. Can you provide an example of a story where the owner doesn’t abuse the power imbalance in some way? Where there isn’t an inherent threat behind disobedience even if such a threat isn’t carried out?

[u/rllrdr → u/person1880]

I mean explicit abuse, you're talking about implicit abuse which is the far harder route to write that I'm talking about.

[u/person1880 → u/rllrdr]

Implicit abuse is still abuse, it’s not harder to write someone who just does the implicit abuse. It’s in fact easier and was often done as part of the happy slave/moral slave owner as a trope. People have tried to move away from that increasingly.

[u/rllrdr → u/person1880]

The happy slave/moral slave owner trope is also lazy writing because it refuses to engage with the other half of the equation: the actual criticism of it. I'm asking for both halves.

[u/4tetraphobia4 → u/rllrdr]

“It’s harder to write” “it is cliche” has become an excuse for right wingers to claim their favorite tropes (unapologetic slavery and sexism) are in fact oppressed actually.

If you weren’t a coward you would make your comment history public.

[u/rllrdr → u/4tetraphobia4]

"unapologetic slavery" directly contradicts "still able to portray slavery as wrong". There's nothing skillful about portraying unapologetic slavery either, that's why isekai hacks use it.

[u/4tetraphobia4 → u/rllrdr]

There’s plenty of historical Josei that explore this sort of thing. Ofc, with marriage and women’s rights rather than slavery. But given legally women were considered the man’s property until some hundred odd years ago…