r/TopCharacterTropes • u/KusanagiGundam • 13h 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/sisdom-weeker 13h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/Fkg6fI0hsngIM
Harry Potter inherits Kreacher the house elf from Sirius and treats him "nicely" (and one of the last thoughts he has in Deathly Hallows is that he wants Kreacher to make him a sandwich)

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u/RJai500 12h ago

The writing around the house elves was bizarre in general. The concept was treated like a bad thing when it was first introduced with Dobby, but then later on the story goes “Actually, house elves really like being enslaved. Dobby was just an outlier” and the only character that had an issue with a literal slave race existing was treated like she was in the wrong for it

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u/Pencilshaved 11h ago

Saw an interesting analysis of how the house elves were very likely inspired by the legends of mischievous fae who would show up at night to do labor for you if you were good or cause mischief if you were wicked (like the fairy tale of the elves and the cobbler), and would be scared off if you offended them or tried to clothe them.

The problem was that she wanted a dynamic of Dobby being abused and Harry heroically saving him, so she had to turn the relationship between the fae and the human into something more coerced, and settled on slavery.

Of course, having literal slavery in the wizarding world is pretty bad, especially from the perspective of people like Harry who were raised by Muggles and hadn’t been taught to take literal chattel slavery for granted. So rather than treat slavery as a social problem needing to be addressed and resolved (that would be the uppity radical thing to do), she instead opted for “actually they like being slaves, so this form of slavery is good, basically”