Tate no Yuusha/Shield Hero Anime General Discussion Thread

[Tenzen12]

Originally Posted by Tong

My point is that if it were illegal then he surely wouldnt make it stand out like a sore thumb.

Now, maybe enslaving actual humans or citizens isnt alloweed, however that was clearly a demi-human slave trade.

Or it's simply law that isn't enforced, because King and his daughter don't give a @}#< about that.

[Tactics]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

I am not completely sure, but I believe slavery is actually illegal in that country btw.

I'd say its closer to "Law exist but the demand said no".

Even with said country enforcing slave as no good, if influential people like landlords, nobles or royal families keep the demand alive, it simply push the transaction to be done secretly behind the enforcers. All of them being demi-human could be implying some kind of discrimination as well that no one bothered making speech about human rights for them.

[Tenzen12]

Yep. That's probably how it is.

[Calca]

I thought the admin wanted the topic tabled for the time being

[Tong]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

Or it's simply law that isn't enforced, because King and his daughter don't give a @}#< about that.

This wouldnt make sense (nor is a reasonable explanation).

If something is deemed illegal, it's because it goes against the interests of the King/Monarchy. If it goes against their interests, then it's only natural to enforce in some way, like laws or forbidding the subject in question.

Now, maybe slaving demi-humans is a grey/ambiguous matter... Anyways, if the King or laws havent strictly forbid this type of slavery, then it can be assumed it's allowed.

Plus, there's no way the dude could have brought all those slaves and cages without nobody noticing.

[Tenzen12]

Not true, there is still plenty of relict laws that noone bother enforce nor abolish in real life too. On top of that this kingdom is monarchy, it's not even certain King has right change laws how he see fit.

Given that royal family is not above robbing even simple man, why do you think royal treasury doesn't run on bribes to overlook such things anyway?

[Magewolf]

Originally Posted by Tong

This wouldnt make sense (nor is a reasonable explanation).

If something is deemed illegal, it's because it goes against the interests of the King/Monarchy. If it goes against their interests, then it's only natural to enforce in some way, like laws or forbidding the subject in question.

Now, maybe slaving demi-humans is a grey/ambiguous matter... Anyways, if the King or laws havent strictly forbid this type of slavery, then it can be assumed it's allowed.

Plus, there's no way the dude could have brought all those slaves and cages without nobody noticing.

There are all kinds of thing that are technically illegal but go on everyday because the law is not enforced. For example at harvest time around here it would be hard to find a field without undocumented workers on it. And everyone knows from law enforcement to our elected officials, even the ones who got elected by saying they were going to force the rampaging brown horde out of the country. But no one ever gets raided and they will be back next year.

[Tenzen12]

In UK it's treason put poststamp with royalty on it upside down. You could get executed for such heinous crime...

[Tong]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

On top of that this kingdom is monarchy, it's not even certain King has right change laws how he see fit.

In an old school monarchy (absolute monarchy) there's no one above the King, the King is the law and has the power of life and death over any citizen.
Technically, in some systems, the Emperor would be above him but so far it doesn't seem to be the case here.

So yes, I believe he can change, remove and make laws by decree.

Originally Posted by Magewolf

There are all kinds of thing that are technically illegal but go on everyday because the law is not enforced. For example at harvest time around here it would be hard to find a field without undocumented workers on it. And everyone knows from law enforcement to our elected officials, even the ones who got elected by saying they were going to force the rampaging brown horde out of the country. But no one ever gets raided and they will be back next year.

That happens because The State is finite and cant possibly enforce the law everywhere (there's also corruption, bureaucracy and abuse of power).
The case here is: You have a slave camp right in the middle of the capital. You would think that something illegal would be somewhere far from authorities.

[Tenzen12]

Ah my bad, I meant kingdom is matriarchy. Which makes kings position much more shaky. I don't even know why I wrote monarchy instead.

Anyway it's not above rulers take bribes

[BWTraveller]

First off, a matriarchy is a monarchy. Monarchy only means one ruler. Matriarchy means ruled by one or more females, patriarchy males. Second, now we're talking about whether or not there are laws in place? Seriously people it'll be out in just a few days, can't we just wait for the anime to openly state what the legal status is before making judgments about that? I'm pretty sure the question will come up. A guy who's frustrated about being unable to prove he didn't commit any heinous crimes isn't all that likely to go and do something big like this without confirming whether or not it's a crime.

[Kinematics]

Also, the ruler is only as good as his advisors, and is further constrained by the limits of any nobility or other power blocs in the kingdom, and their willingness to toe the line.

Even someone with "absolute power" in a kingdom is limited by a wide number of factors. Consider Henry VIII vs the Catholic Church. Even if he could do whatever he wanted in theory, the church limited what he could do in practice. That actually became a point of contention, which led to him kicking the Catholic Church out of England (though it wasn't actually that simple) in order to get the marriage annulment he wanted.

Consider the hypothetical where the church supports slavery, but the king does not. Can he outlaw it? Technically, yes. But in practice? It may not be so simple. If the church can effectively vacate the power of the king (either directly, or because everyone would side with the church in "moral matters", and thus turn against the king), then doing something that the church disagrees with is essentially suicide, negating the ability to make that change.

The desire to impose modern morality on another world (good ol' imperialism at work, though most won't acknowledge that) often ignores the complexities involved in favor of, "I'm right, therefore you should change" mentality.

/*****/

It's interesting in that the current situation, while being argued over as if it were purely a question of slave morality, is actually closer to the classic Trolley Problem hypothetical from many Intro to Philosophy courses.

The Trolley Problem presents you with a choice. You are riding on a trolley, and on the tracks ahead are five people who will die if the trolley continues its current course, and eventually hits them. You have the ability to hit a switch which will cause the trolley to move to another track, but on that other track is one person who will die when the trolley hits han.

So it's a choice between doing nothing, and allowing five people to die, or taking action, and causing one person to die.


In Shield Hero, Naofumi is presented with a similar choice:

1) Do nothing, and you and potentially thousands of people are likely to die when the next Wave hits.

2) Purchase a slave so that you can level up and help defend during the Wave (saving hundreds, or maybe thousands of people's lives), but do so by actively participating in the system of slavery.


The Trolley Problem, on the surface, looks like a choice between 5 people's death and 1 person's death, but it's really more about the moral weight of not acting vs taking action.

Basically, by not taking action, you can claim that it's "not your fault" that people died, because events were already in motion to cause those people's deaths. You also did not directly act in an immoral way. By taking action, you are directly saving lives, but are also directly responsible for the loss of another person's life. Which one is the moral choice?

Naofumi is in the same position. People are claiming that the action he took is immoral, but are completely ignoring the larger context of the question. You can do nothing, and let many people die, or do something, and be the direct cause of an immoral act. If you were in his situation, which choice would you make?

[Tenzen12]

Exception, reason why Naofumi decided buy slave wasn't save thousands, but simply to earn money to live at this point. His "dilemma" isn't greater good vs good conscience. It's matter of survival and people can do lot of bad things to survive.

[Shinji103]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

Exception, reason why Naofumi decided buy slave wasn't save thousands, but simply to earn money to live at this point. his "dilemma" isn't greater good vs good conscience. It's matter of survival. People can do lot of bad things to survive.

Massive oversimplification and outright ignoring facts. He also needs to get stronger to fight the Waves that will destroy the world, but he can’t do that alone because he has no real attack capability.
You’d know this is why he buys a slave if you’d really read the manga. This shouldn’t be a spoiler because he points out this problem already.

And yes I know I said I wasn’t going to get sucked in, but this was just too blatantly wrong.

[Tenzen12]

Which is not on top of his list. At this point of his life he still wouldn't care much even if world was destroyed. If it come to this kingdom he might even welcome it.

And you would know it if you'd really read the manga (or novel) .

[Shinji103]

Well it’s probably a good idea to survive for the time being, so maybe it isn’t an immediate objective. But as I said, if you read the manga you’d know that’s his overall goal and he can’t do that without an attacker.
Yes I know he’s angry, but he doesn’t want everybody to die, also something you should have realized if you read the manga.

And wow, really? Copying my lines? What are you, eight? This is another reason why I’m not getting involved in this “debate,” which is undoubtedly doomed to devolve for a second time.

[RDNexus]

Ep02 is right around the corner. How about chilling a bit for now and come back with new stuff to comment about?

[Shinji103]

Originally Posted by xrick

Ep02 is right around the corner. How about chilling a bit for now and come back with new stuff to comment about?

I really wish they would do that especially since it should disprove a lot of things being said here, but sadly we know they won’t.
And it’s pretty clear that disproving things won’t stop the haters anyway.

[RDNexus]

It's not that simple. Some people won't change their PoV or opinions simply because of that.
And they don't need to, there's just a need to understand what the story is intent on portraying, regardless of each of our values.
When I pick a story, it's basically to enjoy it for what it is. Values and such come second place or beyond

[Shinji103]

Originally Posted by xrick

Some people won't change their PoV or opinions simply because of that.

And that’s precisely my point.