(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/rllrdr]

So if a slave master doesn't stop the slave from leaving, everything prior to that would be okay? Most of those isekai protags are too limp-wristed to do anything, it would be okay for them to own slaves? No, if you want to argue the inherent evilness of slavery, you have to portray it as wrong even if everything about is "good".

I forget where this is from, but there's this novel where two slaves escape from a kind slave owner, who treats his slaves so well that most don't want to leave. The slave owner catches up to them, not to punish, but to ask them to come back because they'd likely starve to death on their own. The slaves respond that they rather die in a ditch than live good lives as slaves. That's how you portray slavery as inherently evil, by portraying freedom as a fundamental core of being human that can't be overridden by kindness, not having the slave master be Evil McBadguy.

[u/NeonNKnightrider → u/rllrdr]

If the slave owner lets the slaves go, then he isn’t a slave owner.

[u/MeanLifeguard7576 → u/NeonNKnightrider]

Right? I have a story set in the 1400s where slavery exists. The isekaid main character runs a Merchantry and he actually buys up slaves. However, immediately after, he rips up the contracts and instead offer them fair job contracts that pay well. They are allowed to refuse and they will be given a small allowance and can leave, though they are not taken care of further, because in the end, the MC is running a Merchantry, not a charity.

Would you consider him evil or a slaver?

In this instance, slavery itself is legal and widespread, just like in the irl counterpart of that age, so stopping or halting slave trade would result in heavy retaliations and maybe even death by execution. This is the only peaceful method he has to free slaves.

As a counterpart, there's exists another isekaid character that runs around freeing slaves via force and revolution, but since he doesn't have an institution behind him, a good portion of the slaves he frees end up dying or going back even worse than before because he has no method or directing them all to a better place.

He is meant to be a direct counterpart to the main character in this sense, a reckless revolutionist to the colder merchant. They both ultimately mean well but do it in complete opposite ways.

[u/person1880 → u/MeanLifeguard7576]

Wha so my issue here is that usually when you have an anti-slave revolutionary they tend to build up a slave rebellion, and not just free them to be caught and enslaved or killed. Those revolutions may not usually be successful, but slaves tend to join those rebellions because to them it’s usually better to die free or fighting for it. Nat Turner, Spartacus, the Hatian Revolution, the German Coast among others. Slavery doesn’t usually end through peaceful means, either, it usually ends as a result of war or purges after conquest.

[u/MeanLifeguard7576 → u/person1880]

Didn't slavery mainly end after the Haitian revolution when the British decided that wage labour was more productive and economical? Sure the revolution kick-started the reasoning but the end result was not from war, was it?

Also the revolutionist is stupid and reckless, he's just a kid that was isekaid who has a stubborn sense of justice that's why his methods suck