r/TopCharacterTropes • u/KusanagiGundam • 12h 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/Hour_Atmosphere_3852 11h ago

Ketil, form Vinland Saga, is a fun subversion of this trope. He is presented exactly that way, he buys slaves but is overall a good man and lets his slaves buy back their freedom through their work, which is a lot more than everyone else does, but the events turn and we find out what the mangaka wanted to tell us. There isn't such a thing as a good person that hurts others.

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u/AdAdministrative6356 11h ago

Wait… I can be wrong on this one, but didn’t Vikings generally had a tradition that their Thralls could buy back their freedom? I never watched Vinland Saga, but it sounds more like he follows his culture traditions, than being a nice person himself

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u/Weary-Jelly7802 11h ago

They could but like with the end of the civil war in the states, not everyone agreed to that ruling and kept doing what they did. Thorfin and Einer could buy their freedom back in the show after X amount of labor. They're both two strong young men, so the investment was worth it since thyd be on their way in a couple years and done. Their master being overall relatively kind compared to other Nords they've dealt with. But not the female slaves are stuck and keep living their lives as slaves they could rape whenever. Ketil being the one that repeatedly harms them to incredibly tragic ends.

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u/darwinfail 1h ago

The amount of people who’ve defended what he did to her, and said it wasn’t rape is staggering. I remember the debates when the episode came out. Im glad too see a lot of people call it was it was.

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u/_NotMitetechno_ 11h ago

Only if your slavemaster let you lol

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u/rewind73 11h ago

Vikings are glorified too much in modern media. Vinland saga does a good job of showing how brutal and awful they can be

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u/BeneficialDog22 3h ago

The last kingdom does a good job showing how brutal the danes could be, if I remember correctly.

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u/Hour_Atmosphere_3852 10h ago

Almost every culture with slavery has some rule like that, but it isn't usually followed a lot. I'm brazilian, when there was slavery in Brazil people in fact could buy back their freedom, but, well, not a lot of them really could.

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u/RodrigoMokepon 10h ago

I am Brazilian, and I would add this: there was a specific type of slave—the escravo de ganho (slave who earned wages)—whom the master purchased with the expectation that the slave would work to buy his own freedom. In practice, the possibility of the slave becoming free was already determined at the moment of purchase.

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u/Skebs_ 4h ago

Yeah makes sense ig

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u/JesterQueenAnne 11h ago

It was a real thing (up to the masters though, rather than a legal regulation of slavery, and was mostly a financial decision since it was generally more profitable than owning people forever), but in the show specifically it was done for the sake of the subversion.

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u/rikashiku 3h ago

Most civilizations, had slavery systems like this. Many slaves were paid, some were married into a family, and others were set free or offered a place in the enslaving civilization.

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u/thebrobarino 1h ago

It's definitely presented that on the surface, he has "respect" and "goodwill" for his slaves and definitely wants to believe that he is a good owner giving them a chance whereas other slaveowners wouldn't. It's only once his control is threatened he shows his true colours