[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Of course, and I never say it did happen. But again, this is what it is to "flirt" with a fetish like this. Every time they bring it up, there is always some sort of "plausible explanation" as to why it's not bad/evil in that moment -- it was necessary, it's to save her life, it's a sign of her trust, she was being controlled, it's to allow them to share the hero's power, it helps him level up, etc. And, to your earlier point, they never show that Naofumi derives any pleasure in using the slave crest. In every situation, there is always some degree of plausible deniability -- a perfectly "reasonable" explanation that isn't "evil."

But the point is that they could also just, you know, not.

The author specifically wrote this slavery motif in the story, and then has to write all sorts of reasons why it's "not actually bad in this case" every time they keep bringing it up, while simultaneously calling out the "evil" slavers to contrast between Naofumi who "owns slaves, yes, but he's actually a good guy!" As Frontier said, they tied it to the powerup conceit and made a running gag of the slave owner's "family." And again, none of that really had to be in there at all. You can definitely make the argument in the opening act that there was a purpose to it -- dancing with the devil was the only way to do good. I still say that could have been a reasonable way to show Naofumi's character development. But after that, honestly, it is a bit gratuitous, leading to these accusations of "lightly" pandering to a fetish. But, again, I'm not saying it's like totally killing the story or anything. I can also understand, though, why some people feel the story would be better off without it. At the very least, like I said before, I feel like there was potential to actually do something more profound with this theme and it was sort of a missed opportunity.



Well... getting his revenge by renaming Malty to Bitch is not exactly growing out of it, and "Bitch" also has a very specific derogatory gendered meaning. Yes, they also involved the father, but "Trash" isn't really the same (although it still isn't in any way mature).

All in all, I think I'd be a bit more suspicious of the subtext in the work, not only the literal text. Within the text there's always a justification, but you always have to consider why the author even chose to write things this way in the first place when there were plenty of other ways they could have gone with the same core plot and themes. And I think that kind of criticism is fair.



By the way, feel free to be argumentative with me as much as you like, so long as it doesn't devolve into personal attacks or anything -- I'm not here to lord my opinions over people, just to discuss.

Part of the problem with slavery in general is that it's honestly hard to use it as a device without it coming across as "flirting with the fetish". I personally didn't see it coming anywhere near that line, in fact pulling away and specifically avoiding it. Sure, that's got its own issues, as it can be easy to make it into "he's a good guy because he could torture you for being annoying but doesn't", but at least for me personally it was more of "yeah we don't want to go there and it doesn't fit with the character or what we wanted out of the inclusion of this so just, no". I'd say they did fair. I'm usually very forgiving, I know plenty well, but it honestly felt more like "I included this thing because this situation fits my 'heartlessly betrayed and unable to trust anyone' concept too well; now I've opened that box, I might as well use it". Still, he did take a pretty darn big risk opening that box. And yeah, while logically it makes sense that a guy who got the ability to power up slaves would want to use it when he knows he's about to face a kaiju, no matter how much the people consent to the situation it still is slavery.

Still, I'd say it really should've come more like what you said, perhaps show a little more distaste at the continuation of slavery to demonstrate that he's tolerating a necessary evil, maybe even show some hesitance with using the slave shield's power up. I just find it pointless to, say, denounce an act as encouraging slavery when it's either necessary to achieve a goal (such as actively searching for members of the village to save them leading to the villagers becoming valuable merchandise) or honestly hard to declare as having a quantifiable influence in one way or another. The results are hard to predict, and failure to do anything may arguably be just as bad, so why be so eager to declare the decision wrong? No point in denouncing your choice at a Morton's Fork.

And to be fair where the naming is concerned, Malty's actions were basically the textbook definition of the word "bitch", while Aultcray wasn't ever in a position to do such things due to age, gender relative to the heroes and obviously monarchial responsibilities. The author himself apparently described Naofumi as a "mirror", returning treatments as they're given. And there's a huge difference between trusting strangers or people who try to be worthy of trust and trusting, well, her.

I don't know, I've seen plenty of stories, as I said above, that are built on dominance, vengeance, control, etc., and this just doesn't feel like it's going there. Especially with the way that plenty of trust is given to many who aren't bound in any meaningful way. Just a matter of perspective I guess, but I for one don't see what some seem to see.