(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/Pecuthegreat]

I mean, I do agree with you. The house elves are clearly based off brownies and kitchen goblins so they could have been made more into employees than slaves which would be closer to the original myth.

Don't know why she decided going with slavery was better when it could just be that that Draco's family was turning legal employees into defacto slaves.

I just think going with the real life comparison maybe stretching authorial intent.

[u/DragonWisper56 → u/Pecuthegreat]

to be honest I have no idea what her intent was. I don't think she intended to say slavery was good but making Hermione a misinformed activist makes it sound like it.

Like I get her intent but she seems to have gone about in perhaps the worst possible way

[u/Bloodyjorts → u/DragonWisper56]

There's also the fact that I think it may have been a somewhat tortured allegory for 'house wives', as one of the oldest women's rights organizations in Industrial England was the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, or...SPEW.

[SPEW still operates today, though they rebranded as 'Futures for Women'.]

As you said, I kinda get her intent, I just don't think it was executed as well as it could have been. I think she was trying to do too much (house wife allegory + brownie folk tales + lampooning misinformed activism + "Wizarding World is kinda fucked up, actually" + racism + slavery + normalization of messed up shit, told through the eyes of a kid whose really going through it right now, all in a book meant for children).

I do think there was some interesting dynamics going on with Sirius and Kreacher, how Sirius's need to separate himself from his racist pureblood family causes him to lash out and take out his anger on Kreacher (in part because Sirius himself is emotionally stunted and immature due to his spending a decade plus in prison), even the kids were kind of shocked at how badly Sirius treated him, and Kreacher found ways to betray Sirius because of this.

[u/lolajet → u/Bloodyjorts]

Considering that she doesn't seem to have that good of an opinion of women (regardless of how she likes to portray herself), that S.P.E.W. parallel makes a depressing amount of sense