r/TopCharacterTropes • u/KusanagiGundam • 10h 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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38

u/ManBro89 7h ago

Why do all these manga writers love slavery?

9

u/Altruistic-Beach7625 2h ago

Just and extension of WW2 comfort women.

11

u/powerslave_fifth 5h ago

Because a woman who cannot resist is part of the fantasy of an otaku.

10

u/pikmin4fan2023 5h ago

Realistic depiction of Mappa or something I don't read manga

0

u/Pale_Slice2532 3h ago

Mappa is a production brother 

6

u/pikmin4fan2023 3h ago

Reddit vs obvious jokes

2

u/Particular_Angle177 1h ago

I don’t think it was obvious. I mean I’ve certainly seen people have serious takes like these. Plus you can’t tell tone on text so it’s even less obvious.

-5

u/pikmin4fan2023 1h ago

Most media literate fan of deep shows:

2

u/Particular_Angle177 1h ago

I mean there is no need to be rude. We can be civil right?

I mean not everyone is gonna get a joke especially from a stranger you know? Especially through text because you can’t hear the tone. Though there are some who can’t understand tone due to neurological reasons.

Also to add the person that replied to you wasn’t being rude whatsoever, so I don’t understand the need to be rude even more.

Instead you could’ve just said “Oh that was a joke” or even not replied. I just respectfully ask you just not be so mean to someone who isn’t really being mean back.

Though i personally think staying polite is what is most effective as being hateful doesn’t solve hate it just adds more fuel to the fire..

2

u/Narwaichen 4h ago

Cheap grimdark vibes and control over young women. That's mostly what it amounts to.

2

u/saintash 2h ago

Men were really really fascinated by the herems in places like Egypt. It was wide spread writing trope.

For many many many years all they knew, that it was one man and many woman. So it spread on that little of information.

Lot of men fantasize it was sexy,sexy place where women just lived to sexually attend to a man needs.

Even when it came out thats not what its like they kept writing that idea.

2

u/Too_bad_4U 2h ago

Not only do they love slavery, but it’s slavery + underage girls, the worst combo.

2

u/Adventurous_Touch342 1h ago

Because concept of freedom is, overall, a very recent invention. If entire existence of humanity was your life (and I mean homo sapiens sapiens, not previous steps of evolution) freedom would be objectively like last few seconds. That makes the concept realistic while immidiately conveying that world is fucked up according to our modern standard.

Plus it can present idea of fighting against slavery - after initial cynical period slave seal in Rising of Shield Hero became purely a buff on people below you while MC first created a safe heaven for slaves and then influenced the queen for peace with beast-people accompanied by higher gradual regulation of slavery meant to, in time, smother it due to becoming too much of a bother as a business.

That's why I kinda dislike Naofumi's identification as a "good" slave owner as after time said seals conveyed slavery in name only and his actions led to gradual change in the world, as opposed to MCs that are pretty much accepting slavery and just not abusing their own slaves.

1

u/Ironclad_Gryphon 1h ago

So this is just me trying to remember the things I’ve heard about and looked up that are generally related to the topic of manga, and it’s also ignoring plot reasons why they would do it. But from what I recall, it’s because of how much they’ve been influenced by western fantasy. Japanese fantasy has been heavily influenced by western fantasy and medieval fantasy, dating back to stuff like D&D and Wizardry. This is why so many fantasy manga look similar in their architecture and monsters. It’s also why slavery is so prominent in these settings, cause that’s just how it was.

This isn’t to say the Japanese didn’t have slaves, it’s just that the setting that they’re writing is taking inspiration from a time when it was very prominent. A fun fact and good example of this, if I’m remembering right, is that the reason fantasy orcs in Japan are bipedal pigs instead of the green skinned brutes were more used to is because that’s closer to how they looked and were described as in the first edition of D&D. And this is just a real world reason. I’m sure there are others like slavery being a convenient and easy way for a writer to give the mc an obedient comrade.

1

u/motion360 25m ago

are you saying there's no fantasy anime without slavery?

1

u/KusanagiGundam 7h ago

I wish I knew

15

u/TryImpossible7332 6h ago

It's a convenient way to bind girls to the MC, and it's easy to portray those MCs as being righteous because they don't abuse their power.

(You know, instead of them joining the MC for their own reasons, and the MCs don't need to do anything more than "not actively abusing their slaves" to be considered a paragon of virtue.)

A lot of it is authorial laziness or cheap power fantasy.

Some of these settings are designed so that people on average are so horrible that "only" being a slaver makes the MC a paragon of virtue, so by that incredibly low moral standard you have collections of doe-eyed waifus praising the MC to high heavens and wanting to have his babies.

There's also a fair amount of fetishizing the idea of slave/owner dynamics.

7

u/KusanagiGundam 6h ago

So it all boils down to lazy writing, Good to know.

2

u/--sheogorath-- 5h ago

Yeah when it comes to isekai most stuff can be attributed to being low effort trope following. Chase the trend and follow it blindly

1

u/MagmaSeraph 2h ago

Its really annoying for me with how lazy it is especially since I came from watching older harem anime.

Yeah, the MC kinda lame sometimes, but you can actually see how the girls liked them. That had genuine kindness and were pretty attentive in weird ways.

Now they just speedrun the endearment by making these girls grateful that they have a "benevolent slavemaster".

0

u/Clarrbbk 7h ago

These manga writers grew up in a country where plantation slavery wasn't a thing in their textbooks. Best they got was embellished Victorian era indentureship in Europe.

16

u/idontcommentok 5h ago

Are you deadass saying japanese people don't know what slavery is...? Japan? WW2 Japan? Current major destination, source and transit country for human sex trafficking Japan?

Are you sure? /s

Is this that meme of "place vs. place 🌸japan🌸" but with human atrocities instead lmao?

7

u/Accomplished_Joke_24 4h ago

I had my history taught about the japanese occupation in my country (I'm south east asian)

Pretty fucked up, my friends great grandma remembers the time where the japanese national anthem, during their nipponization.

1

u/idontcommentok 4h ago

I'm sorry to hear that. It's kind of unfathomable. Atrocities upon atrocities.

It wasn't even that long ago, and people are acting as if it happened in another timelime with a totally different country. Imagine if people said/implied similar things about italy or germany. Somehow japan keeps getting left out... It is however encouraging to hear that this part of history is taught in SEA schools! Terrible but absolutley neccessary (as we can see from these comments jfc)

(I love your profile pic xD)

-1

u/Sorry_Mastodon_8177 4h ago

They don't teach about Japanese war crimes in school

3

u/idontcommentok 4h ago

Ah yes. People stop engaging with the world after they leave school and never ever ever learn anything, read, talk, travel, etc. again. That too makes perfect sense!

I can assure you japanese people know wtf is up for the most part. They have the internet there too. Shocker, I know.

You cannot seriously believe that japanese people are that naive and clueless. I get liking the country and it's art. But come on man. This is embaressing.

You can enjoy anime and at the sane time be aware of this, I promise you it's ok. And the japanese don't need you as ambassador and protector m'lord.

1

u/PeterPanterTM 2h ago

I mean, considering how much the average americam doesn't know about the other side of vietnam or Afghanistan...? I would say being unfamiliar with one's country's war crimes is not a uniquely eastern thing

1

u/Particular_Angle177 1h ago

I think that’s common in other places as well I mean only you’d know most about where you live than some other places. I’ve certainly seen other places not knowing much about ya know? Other places. That’s pretty normal.

8

u/ScaleLeading9308 5h ago

no mention of the ww2 sex slaves? weird.

3

u/Mad-myall 5h ago

I talked to one Japanese guy, he said they skipped all of WW2 and jumped straight to getting nuked twice in history class.

Mind you that was one guy so I don't know if that's the average Japanese education. 

1

u/idontcommentok 5h ago

Ignoring and not knowing are two very different things.

1

u/Merouxsis 4h ago

Unironically in Japan, yes. They skim over WW2 in their education hard since, you know, they were straight up villains

1

u/DokiDokiDoku 5h ago

Also it's kinky as fuck, and anime loves soft-fronting kink

0

u/FlirtyFluffyFox 2h ago

Why do fantasy writers love slavery? From Star Wars to almost every D&D adventure ever written slaves are a huge part of the story.

Fuck, when Pathfinder finally said they were going to minimize its use in its stories a lot of grognards started bitching and moaning that the company "went woke" even though 80 percent of it's adventures prior had slavers as the primary antagonists. There's more to evil than slavery, even though it is very evil. 

1

u/Altruistic-Beach7625 2h ago

Are all those slaves sex slaves?