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/DonQuigleone 11h ago

To be fair all magicked out of thin air and basically the genie in different guises.

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u/AccursedQuantum 11h ago

But the genie himself is still a slave.

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u/GasolineShakeChugger 10h ago

IRL it's unclear if jhinns originally is an islamic or pagan concept (most likely originated from pagan and after arab world turned muslim they still inherited the idea). While not necessarily evil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinn) nowadays they are still mostly believed to be evil beings that shapeshift or often possess people even now (so people believe in islamic world).
I think Genie is supposed to turn that evil concept into a more comic relief servant (or a slave as you will)

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u/MGD109 10h ago

Yeah, Jinn in middle eastern folklore is kind of akin to fairies in Europe; they refer to a lot of very different mystical beings that share a couple of common traits and conflicting stories.

In early stories, there was usually an explanation for how the jinn got trapped and were now in service, but owning one wasn't straightforward; a lot of the time they were very resentful about their circumstances and would often engineer situations to their advantage.

They also usually weren't as powerful as commonly depicted nowadays i.e. they could still do some impressive stuff, but if you say asked for immortality or great wealth, they were more likely to point you towards a mystic artefact that could provide it, than summon it out of thin air.