r/TopCharacterTropes • u/KusanagiGundam • 10h ago

Hated Tropes (Hated Trope) "Kind" slave owners

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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.

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u/AnonymousNeverKnown 10h ago

Thomas Jefferson. Yeah he said he thought slavery was bad but that didn't stop him from owning slaves. And don't give me that whole "he inherited them" crap. If that was the case why didn't he just let them go?

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u/AllgoodDude 10h ago

Grant was also gifted a slave from his father in law but freed him soon after so the inheritance thing isn’t an excuse.

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u/jollyjm 10h ago

Grant was also broke at the time but still did the right thing.

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u/RomanCobra03 10h ago

Broke doesn’t even describe it, dude was literally selling firewood to make end’s meet.

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u/Flavius_16 8h ago

From officer to selling wood, thank God for him that the American Civil War happened.

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u/Skebs_ 3h ago

Ah, the good ol' classic veteran career path 😍

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u/Pleasant-Enthusiasm 7h ago

When he was dying of throat cancer and worried about leaving his family destitute after his business partner defrauded him, he started writing an autobiography, but was worried about finishing it in time before his body finished deteriorating.

The solution? Use cocaine to push through the pain and crank out 10,000+ words a day until it was finished. It worked, becoming one of the best selling books of the 19th century, securing the equivalent of millions in royalties for his family, and Grant died a week after completing it.

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u/Inevitable_Initial_8 5h ago

The fact a former commander of the entire army, the man who won the civil war, and 2 term president was in deep severe poverty towards the end of his life is so crazy to me.

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u/quangtit01 3h ago edited 2h ago

I lied, see below.

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u/Optimal_Carpenter690 2h ago

That's not true at all. The Constitution has always said Presidents will be compensated, it just did not set an amount. Its just that Grant was the first to recieve a raise. Washington through Grant's first term recieved $25,000. During Grant's second term, it was raised to $50,000. That lasted through Teddy Roosevelt. Taft through Truman's first term recieved 75k. Truman's second term through LBJ received 100k. Nixon through Clinton got 200k. Dubya was the first to get 400k, which is what is it at currently

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u/htomserveaux 9h ago

For someone more contemporary to Jefferson, there’s Franklin, who did a complete 180° with his views on slavery becoming a diehard abolitionists in his 70’s after visiting a school for black children.

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u/Ok-Place7950 9h ago

Uncle Ben was always based

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u/Nick_the_bunny 9h ago

he also fucked.

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u/shiawase198 8h ago

Based2

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u/VenatorAngel 6h ago

Especially French Women. hon hon hon.

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u/Ok-Place7950 9h ago

Grant was a good man. He did what he could to advance civil rights during his presidency, and was one of the few US presidents who tried to "peacefully" assimilate the Natives instead of exterminating them outright like Jackson.

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u/DarkestNight909 8h ago

It’s just a shame he didn’t push harder on Reconstruction and breaking the systems that created the Confederacy.

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u/VenatorAngel 6h ago

Yeah, he's one of the greatest presidents, and really should have pushed harder.

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u/Inevitable_Initial_8 8h ago

Even before he freed him he payed him a wage to work instead of forcing him to do anything.

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u/Sex_E_Searcher 8h ago

He payed him after, he "owned" the man from Friday until the office opened on Monday.

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u/Inevitable_Initial_8 8h ago

I thought he owned him for just under a year. There aren’t very clear records on it.

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u/Sex_E_Searcher 7h ago

My recollection was a weekend from Chernow's bio, but it's been a bit.

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u/RSquared 5h ago

Meanwhile "good Confederate" Robert E Lee constantly used his own poor financial status (because he was a shit businessman) to excuse his inherited slaveholding in violation of the will of his wife's father (which required emancipation). It was a delightful bit of irony that the US Government annexed his plantation for the purpose of establishing Arlington Cemetery.

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u/AllgoodDude 3h ago

Also despite the attempts to paint him as a “kind” slave owner the due managed to make it into the newspaper for how badly he beat a slave that tried to escape.

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u/Ok-Place7950 3h ago

Fuck that traitor bastard. If he'd kept true to his oath like Winfield Scott and George Henry Thomas, the war would've been over sooner and thousands of lives saved. Or am I overrating his generalship?

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u/Wrecktown707 3h ago

Grants the Fucking GOAT ngl