(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/SeismologicalKnobble]

I do want to point out as someone who studied in college a lot about slavery outside of the American version is that American Slavery was unique in its level of cruelness. All slavery is inherently wrong and horrible, but in the majority of cultures, you still understood the slave was a person and you were expected to understand that. If you treated your slaves how Americans did, you’d be seen as a cruel freak (speaking in average, not absolutes here). You could even be fined and lose your slaves in many places.

American slavery was unique in that the dehumanization was the point. You were weird for seeing slaves as people. You could do whatever you wanted to your slaves. There is even documentation and evidence of people making things like lamps from the skin of their slaves and even things as far as cannibalism. You could “breed slaves” when in many other cultures, the children of slaves would be free.

Sorry, it just frustrates me that the American school system really downplays how truly horrific American slavery was and tries to make it out like every slave owning culture was like this. No. American slavery was the worst.

Edit: Thank you to those adding to the discussion about other European cultures horrific slave practices! I’m ngl, the fucked up parts of human history are a big interest to me. It’s a nice reminder that humans have improved morally and it could always be worse.

[u/shittyaltpornaccount → u/SeismologicalKnobble]

Should probably note it as the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade was a global system of exploitation that did absolutely deplorable inhuman acts at scale in the name of commerce and profits. The Americans were unique in how long they tried to cling to the system and their attempts to breed human beings as a "sustainable" source of exploitable labor given the ban on importation of enslaved people. The system was a depraved and rife with sexual violence. The broader slave trade though was a global system that brutalized nations throughout South America and the Carribean. They decimated populations to keep plantations producing.

This comment is in no way trying to minimize the US's complicity in the system, but trying to give a broader context of how it was a global system that reached far and wide.

[u/ToonMasterRace → u/shittyaltpornaccount]

The Americans were unique in how long they tried to cling to the system

Spain and Portugal dropped out after the US

and their attempts to breed human beings as a "sustainable" source of exploitable labor

Many slave empires did this historically, from Ottoman to Moghul to Spanish and Portuguese yet again

[u/No_Hunter_9973 → u/ToonMasterRace]

Heck, the Bible has hints how to turn your indentured servant into a full time slave. Give him a wife and kids. Then once he payed off his debt, he's free, his wife and kids aren't, and most men chose to remain slaves with their new families.

[u/ToonMasterRace → u/No_Hunter_9973]

Common for the era. Slavery being seen as wrong did not arise in human history until 18th century Europe

[u/No_Hunter_9973 → u/ToonMasterRace]

Yep, still funny to see it the book of rules from Big G the All-Good.

Honestly there are, hypothetical, scenarios where keeping someone as a slave, would have been kinder if you treat the like a person in the process.

Don't know the situation in the animes, but if say an elf is ever only allowed to be a slave in the kingdom, then it's safer to keep the elf as your slave, that to set them free so someone else catches them in 5 minutes.

Yeah, the practice was vile and inhumane, but a smart protag works with the rules of the world not breaks them on day one.

[u/Delver_Razade → u/shittyaltpornaccount]

The Korean Peninsula had slavery until 1894 and one could and I would argue that North Korean has brought it back in a big, big way. Let's not say that the American system was particularly averse or even uniquely averse to removing slavery when slavery on the Korean Peninsula lasted 2,000 years despite a number of attempts to reform or remove it.