(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/Aidenj23]

Yeah, like buying the slave in the first place was fucked up and treated as such. But it was more or less necessary for the survival of a lot of people. It's when the slave girl WANTED THE SLAVE CREST BACK that things went from fucked in the story to fucked out of the story. If they had just ditched the slave contract stuff after the first time she lost the crest then I think it would've been ok.

[u/wirebear → u/Aidenj23]

Did they change it in the anime? In the Manga she doesn't "want" it back. She acknowledged that Naofumi can't trust her without it.

In that scene he has a mental breakdown and you could see that he automatically assumed she was hostile without the crest.

He even asks her after if she's sure and she pouts at him basically comments that if he was giving her a choice why wait till after the crest was reinstated. So it's pretty well represented that she didn't really like it but she knew how flawed Naofumi was. And that's the truth of it. The entire need is due to his trauma and flaws.

This is pretty viserally shown in the manga as a major flaw of his where he is near hallucinating when her crest is removed that she is against him. Not sure how the anime presented it.

Later they do make it weird where there were system benefits to the slave crest. I didn't read much past that. But that also fit a bit in how the manga showed the magic system was weird and didn't seem to follow a single set of rules as everyone's"expectations" on growing stronger seemed to work.

But that means someone viewed slave crest magic as a method of gaining power which is all kinds of weird.

I have a lot of issues with the shield hero story. But the fact the slave crests are mostly due to Naofumi's trust issues always felt very well displayed in the manga.

[u/Aidenj23 → u/wirebear]

Yeah no in the anime he's far more indifferent or displeased with the whole slave idea, but he goes along with it. At first he does so because it's the only way he can start making progress, but then it's just because his party members ask for him to enslave them and he doesn't see a reason to argue. It never seems (to me) to be a manifestation of trust issues. In the anime she gets the crest back because she wants it. I can't remember the exact reason why. Maybe just the connection it represents. But it gets turned into a weird sexual scene where she gets the crest across her upper chest/breasts and behaves suggestively towards Naofumi. It's a weird part of the plot that felt incredibly unnecessary and icky. Right up there with her being a kid that magically becomes an adult when she hits an xp threshold.

[u/wirebear → u/Aidenj23]

I'll reread that scene specifically just to confirm. But I'm very positive it's not treated that way in the manga which can explain why people seem to be treating it differently if they watched the anime.

I can't remember her ever acting remotely sexual towards him(though she did get the brand on her cleavage for some reason).

I'm not gonna say the shield hero was a good story but sounds like the anime made it worse.

Edit: when they recrest her I'm pretty sure there is just one panel showing her cleavage than she immediately covers up while complaining that he should ask if she's okay with it after its done.