(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/XanXic]

I've been catching up on Ascendence of Bookworm, it's a fun and charming slice of life isekai. But it's absolutely crazy how hyper focused it is on child labor camps.

Like her goal in life is adopting as many orphans as possible and getting them to work on her inventions. "No one will take care of them otherwise" like idk, you became a princess in like two years, one of the most powerful magic users, and rich as hell from selling tech ideas from our world..... maybe setup social services or something? But she picks up the abused 6 year old off the ground, tells them "those who do not work shall not eat", and gives them a job in a dingy workshop.

[u/LouisLeGros → u/XanXic]

I think Bookworm makes it pretty clear that she doesn't exactly approve, but even given the reforms she is enacting has a lot of powerful people trying to kill her. It's kind of a repeated theme that her trying to directly go against the forces of nobility without planning around the existing power structures ends poorly.

Like yeah from a modern setting it feels cruel for her be lecturing the slave orphans like that, but before that they were being left to starve to death & even given her resources she has to fund most of the reforms of child labor with her own funds.

Not that it makes Myne a good person, but I think at least bookworm does enough world building to show how the MC couldn't just easily fix such a systemic issue. I would judge her a lot more harshly if we get more content after the main events of the story & she didn't change things.

[u/XanXic → u/LouisLeGros]

I just think it's excuses and it's not too different from the argument people are making to defend Shield Hero still using Slave Crests. "They're just a product of their environment"

You know if she offered a new invention to the merchants or new archduke dad on the contingency they put whatever percent to providing for orphans no strings attached they'd still jump on it. I've seen no effort from her to actually provide unconditional support. It's always based on working in her sweat shops even from the beginning. She's literally a saint princess and second in charge of the church. The churches didn't provide the best to orphanages but they also didn't make the kids work in sweatshops either.

I see literally nothing stopping her from asking to lean in on providing free support for orphans other than her own notion of "no work, no eat". She's already breaking social paradigm's every 10 episodes as it is. Why is child workshops beyond that?

[u/LouisLeGros → u/XanXic]

One is a product of their environment where the slave crest is literal magic mechanic the author arbitrarily adds whose only purpose is to add an upside to slavery with the experience share and the other is a fleshed out agarian society where a couple years earlier they were just letting the majority of the orphans starve to death.

You could potentially change the writing to make her an actual saint that transforms the feudal economy and manages to jump them ahead hundreds of years and abolish child labor, but that would just feel like a fundamentally different story and trivializes the main hook of how much effort it takes to change the world via the introduction of printing. Like at that point it might feel something more like Easy Going Territory Defense

I don't think the slave crest's role within Shield hero make that all comparable even if they both fall broadly under "product of their environment."

[u/waitthatstaken → u/LouisLeGros]

The entire point of the Hasse arc is just to show what happens when she, not knowing the weight of her authority, haphazardly tries to do something kind. Trying to stop 2 orphans from being sold led to half a dozen executions and the town almost being burned to the ground. And that is not even mentioning that they were reliant on the money they would have earned from the sale, had Myne not been told of that, and payed for the orphans afterwards, people would have frozen to death or starved.

Sure most of that is because of the power structures in that world being fucked, but that is also kinda the point. She is a single person, and she is up against pretty much the entire world.

LN spoilers: I do wonder what would happen in that world in the years following the end, seeing as the story ends with her having all the institutional power one would need to actually end slavery and such. You know with her being an archduchess and the queen being name sworn to her. Plus Ferdinand could probably figure out a way to actually implement the end of slavery, since he is Ferdinand. At the very least the orphanages in general would probably be reformed to be much better country wide, with the temple's role in society changing and all that.

[u/DjangoDarko19 → u/XanXic]

I use to enjoy AoB when it first started up until it became super religious/preachy, I never got to the basic orphans as workers arch but heard it came after. So I was glad I tapped out.

[u/XanXic → u/DjangoDarko19]

If it helps the religious aspects are fiction. Like it's not tied to any real religion, has it's own mythology you get hints of, and it does sort of use it to kind of criticize religious power as a concept. It's jut one part of it's world building which it does very well. And like most things in the show it's more to build up social paradigms that the main character has to navigate through rather than for it's own sake.

It is still a cute show with good vibes and I do love the main character. I think it's worth watching. The orphan workers isn't like dire or disturbing, it's just borderline funny how the series has zero qualms about it.

It's interesting days later seeing how absolutely pressed people got about my comment when I just simply pointed out orphan labor is a decent chunk of the show lol. Maybe it should be criticized for not being harsher on it within it's own narrative since people are so cool with it, and hitting me with the "it's good actually" because of the show.

[u/ukezi → u/XanXic]

Sure, but also think about it an other way, that society just has about no education system. She sets them up with an education as apprentices in her workshop system. In medieval Europe children learned their parents profession, had to pay to be apprentices or became day labour. Her setting them up with a trade is a path to a relative middle class life instead of being servants or farm hands.

[u/kolba_yada → u/XanXic]

No offense but this is a pretty surface level understanding of the media and it's world. Ascension of Bookworm isn't your average "MC gets reborn and is super powerful and untouchable". There's been several seasons released atp and at no point MC is as powerful as you paint her to be.

She's not a powerful magic user, she's just some one who has an abundance of it.

She's not at the top of the hierarchy, she literally has several powerful figures constantly dotting her and looking at her moves.

On top of it all, the show clearly makes it clear that MC is a child.

Also why are we acting like she's running a sweatshop, as if she didn't straight up improve the condition of the orphans.

[u/XanXic → u/kolba_yada]

It's odd to say my interpretation is surface level then literally describe the show at the most surface level. I have to assume you haven't seen the show, idk how you can write all that as a rebuttal otherwise. You basically wrote the synopsis.

Like she's literally not even a child? She's a 20+ year old woman in a childs body. Any time she does magic it's at a scale that scares other people. She has powerful people watching her because she's so smart and powerful. If she was a nobody with nothing worthwhile they wouldn't give a shit about her and leave her ass in her hovel with her family. It is a sweatshop. Idk what you're talking about. Forcing children to work to feed themselves is like defitionally child labor. Is it better than starving to death sure, but so is slavery so I guess may as well argue that slavery is good actually since any improvement is acceptable. I'm sure if she starts prostituing out the girls and offering them nicer rooms or they go to the streets it's fine as well.

It's a fair criticism to have of the show. Mine shows no remorse or apprehension of child labor and it's the backbone of almost all of her mercantile goods. There is no path or pressure within the show or from the character to provide for orphanages without child labor. So it will never happen even if she became an all powerful god king, you know her ass would still be saying 'no work no eat' to those filthy little children begging for food. You can be fine with child labor camps. I find it odd that the persistent B plot is expanding them.

[u/kolba_yada → u/XanXic]

She is a child. She act like a child. She constantly think about her family that she had to leave etc. I genuinely don't see how it's not obvious that the show presents her as a child with a MEMORY of her past life rather than a 20-something YO woman with perfectly intact character from her past life.

People are scared of her magic because it's powerful, yes. It still doesn't make her a powerful mage. If a guy can kill 20 people with a toothpick HE'S powerful, if a guy has a bomb he HAS powerful tool. And why are we assuming like other powerful people wouldn't just smite her ass? In fact that what literally almost happened in the few last recently released episodes.

"She has powerful people watching her because she's so smart and powerful. If she was a nobody with nothing worthwhile they wouldn't give a shit about her and leave her ass in her hovel with her family." - and what exactly is your arguement here? Yes, she has a potential to do good and in fact that does happen. Do you expect her to turn the entire societal system upside down in a day or something? Also the very same powerful people who watch over her constantly keep her in reign. In fact, as another person already said her very attempt to help the very same orphans lead to multiple people being executed and the entire village being punished.

Here's a definition of "sweatshop" from the wikipedia. You're free to point out the unhealthy conditions that are presented in the show.

Dunno whether you deleted the comment or the mod did, but claiming that I have a literacy problem when you refuse to see anything from POV of the character is extremely hypocritical. You're free to dislike the show, but that won't make the fact that your "criticism" is shallow subjective dislike of the show any less true. There ARE things to criticise the show over, you're however are doing it incorrectly.

[u/XanXic → u/kolba_yada]

At this point idk what you want. You have a literacy problem here. That's not how the show works. To go even meta on it, it's clearly not a problem to the writer since it's hardly criticized or commented on within the show. "What's your point here" it's very apparent, she wields power, influence, and riches. Can you not comprehend how she can use that? Society isn't even against providing for orphans, I haven't engaged with that point because it isn't a legitimate one. She did it at the start out of desperation to have a labor force for her to start making money. Little skeezy but fine. Now she's rich and established enough to not need to do it. Bringing up definitions as an argument is desperate. I'm using sweatshop as a quick hand term. I do say child labor way more often, did you look up the definition for that? You saying because she acts like a child she must be a child is ridiculous. I'm guessing you're fine with Mushuko Tensei having the main character touch little girls because he 'looks like a child'. Again, you can love child labor workshops all you want. I don't. You need to step back and really look at the kind of shit your defending and the greater points you fine with. I noticed you didn't even disagree with my prostitution point lol.

[u/kolba_yada → u/XanXic]

Also, even if we DO assume that she's a fully concious adult that just happens to occupy a body of child. Do you genuinely believe that A CHILD could have any sort of political power over people on the same level of postion of power/even higher than her who are ADULTS? Can we be serious?