Slavery in LN

jpwong

@jpwong said in Slavery in LN:

It's at least a step up from the stories where slavers seemingly just go around to random farmsteads kidnapping people to sell in towns and no one questions it.

Thoughts on Apothecary Diaries where that's apparently what they actually do? It's just made more complicated by being tied into palace politics.

I guess all I can say is I haven't read that one so I'm unable to comment on it. The ones I'm thinking of are more the ones where slavery just sort of pops into the story several volumes in. Like where they're just walking down the street and bam, suddenly there's a cage on a cart on the side of the road where someone's basically auctioning people off right there. MC's companions from the world treat it as a regular everyday occurrence. If slavery were really such a common and unregulated thing it almost defies logic that it's taken that long for it to show up.

At least in the stories where slavery is essentially a regulated industry (even if it's regulated poorly) I can potentially believe how we might not have seen it until it's introduced if we've volumes into a story. But a regulated industry takes away from the bullet points Village Idiot mentions.

Jon Mitchell

my $.02:
I dislike slavery as a trope
I dislike it because slavery embodies the worst in human society, and an author who uses it as a trope, a shortcut, trivializes it.
An author who does this is being lazy, and that takes away from my enjoyment of the story. I've gone into more detail in the fora for some of the series that have this particular trope. (ex. Campfire Cooking) I can 'hold my nose' and get through the story, and try not dwell on the parts that I disapprove of (much like the lousy blacksmithing in Quiet Blacksmith)

Slavery in a story, as a tragic aspect of a society, or an evil to be conquered, can add to worldbuilding. It isn't off limits (at least to me) - I object to it being taken lightly.

Village Idiot

This post is deleted!

kurosov

@jon-mitchell said in Slavery in LN:

I dislike it because slavery embodies the worst in human society, and an author who uses it as a trope, a shortcut, trivializes it.
An author who does this is being lazy, and that takes away from my enjoyment of the story. I've gone into more detail in the fora for some of the series that have this

I strongly dissagree.

Slavery is a fact of human cultural development to the point where an author would need a specific cultural explanation for it having never occurred. It's the most basic form of an oppressive class system that shouldn't be offhandedly ignored in many cases.

Even as a form of background worldbuilding it's no more lazy than including any other class divides in a fictional society.

What it sounds like is you find slavery in particular an uncomfortable subject you'd rather not be presented in a story to keep you from feeling uncomfortable.

kuali

@myskaros said in Slavery in LN:

@jpwong said in Slavery in LN:

It's at least a step up from the stories where slavers seemingly just go around to random farmsteads kidnapping people to sell in towns and no one questions it.

Thoughts on Apothecary Diaries where that's apparently what they actually do? It's just made more complicated by being tied into palace politics.

Technically, it's not a legal practice in Apothecary Diaries; The ladies of the rear palace are signed up on fixed term contracts, (two years by default, although they can be extended) supposedly with the consent of themselves or their family.

It's just that if someone kidnaps a pretty commoner girl, forges the paperwork for her, and hands her over to one of the recruiting officials as 'my cousin X' it's unlikely she'll ever be able to prove any wrongdoing on their part in order to get out of the contract. Even a high ranking member of the imperial government has to admit that proving a case against Maomao's (the main character, who was trafficked in such a manner) kidnappers (or even finding them months after the fact) is basically futile.

So it's not that it's considered acceptable, just that the government isn't in any position to stop it.

kurosov

@kuali said in Slavery in LN:.

So it's not that it's considered acceptable, just that the government isn't in any position to stop it.

It’s interesting someone would bring Apothecary diaries of all series up.

It’s set in an empire that did actually recently ban slavery by imperial decree and shows they’ve struggled to implement it, especially with it still being practiced in neighbouring countries.

Slavery is used as a plot device to introduce a character sneaking into the rear palace posing as a eunuch rescued war slave.

The story depicts how the slavery ban has those in industries like brothels worrying how it may or may not affect indentured servitude which most of the prostitutes fall under.

Even with the ban they have a rigid social class system with differing rights

It’s as far from lazy trope as you can get.

myskaros

@kurosov Just to put it out there, I brought it up in response to the "people kidnapping in your backyard and no one batting an eye" comment, since that's kind of what happens in Apothecary ;x

Shiny

LNs are mostly a form of light entertainment so I usually wouldn't expect them to go into the full horrors of any topic, whether that be war or slavery.

Mostly when I see slavery in isekai LNs it is in the manner described above of it just being a lazy way for an Isekai to get new party members or to create a situation where someone needs rescuing. I generally feel more embarrassed for the author rather than offended when saving someone from evil slavers is used as a convenient device.

However, it does get extremely uncomfortable if the saved characters remain as slaves for seemingly no good reason or if slavery is portrayed as unquestionably a positive thing. It's like, does the author think that's what I want to read?

unknownmat

@kurosov said in Slavery in LN:

Slavery is a fact of human cultural development to the point where an author would need a specific cultural explanation for it having never occurred. It's the most basic form of an oppressive class system that shouldn't be offhandedly ignored in many cases.

This is how I tend to see it, too. Exploitation and othering is ubiquitous throughout history. Without a good reason its absence, rather than its presence, would negatively impact the quality of the world building.

I don't have strong feelings about slavery as a story element. It is usually a mistake to let your gut reaction dictate how you feel about the story - you usually would take a step back and ask what the author wanted to convey and why. Judging based merely on the presence/absence of "problematic" elements is too superficial, in my opinion.

That said, even I would have to put the book down if the protagonist started abusing slaves (or children, or anyone who was powerless) or reveled in holding power over them.

Folker46

@kurosov Moral grandstanding? I guess you would not be opposed to black people still being slaves if the white majority thought it was ok? You sound like a pre-1865 Democrat justifying owning slaves.

Folker46

@kurosov And slavery would STILL be a fact of modern culture if good people did not stand up and oppose it. When the MC has a "go along to get along" attitude I wonder what else the author would find ok. Human sacrifices? Humans raised and eaten like cattle? Where do you draw the line and say, "I will resist this evil!" For you I doubt there is such a line.

catstorm

@folker46

Ah yes the use of an ad hominem attack, that will certainly prove you are right.

myskaros

Let's just turn down the temperature. No one should be engaging in personal attacks.

Everyone should read only what they feel comfortable reading. If you're fine with the depiction of slavery in a given novel, great. If you're not, put it down and find something you'll enjoy better. No one needs to judge anyone else for their personal decision either way.

There can be legitimate reasons to have slavery in novels, and also to avoid it, and in both cases, there are conscientious depictions, and there are not. We can discuss this without involving any individuals here.

If things escalate, don't respond. Just flag the post and a moderator will address it.

Folker46

@myskaros You are, of course, right. It's just as a black man and the descendent of slaves, I find these justifications for slavery very offensive. I will talk about other things from now on.

rsog412

@folker46 - This topic would likely benefit from examples, so that we can keep the focus of discussion on the works in question and away from eachother.

I would bet dollars to donuts that most people on this forum agree with you. There are some downright terrible portrayals of slavery in LNs, and if you're coming here to vent about those, then you'll probably find good company here.

That said I don't think we should generalize from a few bad authors anything about "the Japanese attitude toward slavery," as a culture. That's a super broad brush to paint a hundred million people with - and posting a generalization like that on a forum full of people who are fans of Japanese translated works is unlikely to go over well.

There's plenty of flattering portrayals of other terrible things in LN's, too (child grooming and student/teacher relationships come up a lot, as does incest) - but I don't think those are really any more acceptable there than in the west, outside of fiction. If I were to speculate, there are cultural differences surrounding the ideas of taboo, age-appropriateness, and what's appropriate for print.

And yet, for all of those, any time I've kept reading in spite of being seriously uncomfortable with the subject matter, I've found the rest mediocre at best. Good writers tend to be more thoughtful about what they're writing regardless of culture, so if you drop a series (and an author) because they try to write slavery and end up writing an offensive mess, you're probably not missing out on anything.

jpwong

Honestly I feel there's 3 main reasons that the depictions of slavery in LNs tends to be substandard. First, LNs are quite obviously entertainment. Few authors probably want to actually get into the nitty gritty details about slavery, they want to write their self insert fantasy RPG life. This sort of leads to the second thing, they're just bringing it in to introduce a character, introduce a villain, or introduce some concept the MC is going to overthrow. Most stories use it as a trope to introduce the MC to some person who just happens to be perfect for what they need and they're going to spend a few chapters liberating the slave from their abusive captors and then you'll never hear about it again. Lastly most of these stories involve plot lines where the MC is on some quest to do something that's seen as more important than fixing this world's societal issues. What's ending slavery next to saving humanity from the demon lord when god literally summoned them to fight?

If I were to pick a story where I enjoyed how slavery was incorporated into the story it would have to be Realist Hero. It recognizes that no matter what type of society you live in, you can't just order the system to change and expect it will happen overnight. You need to lay groundwork and have preparations to get to the goal you want, otherwise yes you might successfully abolish the system, but the people you just freed may end up worse off than they were before.

If I step that back, stories like Campfire Cooking or By the Grace of the Gods are set in worlds where slavery has already been reformed to some level (at least whichever country the MC is staying at). It's called slavery, but it's not really slavery that I think people typically think about (that the slaves are just objects to be bought and sold and are generally mistreated), slaves have specific rights, minimum levels of treatment, and owners and slaves are bound by contracts which in theory are enforced (typically not something that's shown) by either the country's government or one of the guilds. Slaves have a defined pathway to get out of slavery. These stories tend to also have a criminal slave system which more closely resembles the penal labour system that some parts of the US has and people could in theory be released after serving their term (though stories typically introduce the system when the MC captures someone who just finished mass murdering a bunch of people, so I don't think I've ever seen a story that actually showed someone finishing their sentence).

Ultimately it's probably viewed as more acceptable because it's fiction, and it's set in a world that's supposed to resemble a slightly romanticized middle ages. In the same vein, there's plenty of stories that show discrimination and prosecution of specific group of people, typically demi-humans in these stories. In many of these stories the MC may end up helping or rescuing the persecuted group in front of them, but generally speaking they don't go out and actually try to fix the problem at a societal level.

Lex

Unless the story really promotes slavery as a wonderful thing that makes the world a better place I usually have no problems with it being a part of the setting, be it a horrible evil that the protagonist has to eradicate or simply a part of a society depicted with different cultural values as ours. I also have no real problems when the protagonist for pragmatic reasons decides that he cannot reform society so slavery isn't needed anymore or he resorts to buying slaves himself, a part of it being due by the fact that such slaves are almost invariably treated better that contemporary workd workers.

kurosov

@folker46 said in Slavery in LN:

And slavery would STILL be a fact of modern culture if good people did not stand up and oppose it.

It takes movement of many people combined with support of the ruling class or outright revolt to push such a cultural change.

When the MC has a "go along to get along" attitude I wonder what else the author would find ok. Human sacrifices? Humans raised and eaten like cattle? Where do you draw the line and say,

This is a really baffling argument.

You're talking about an individual dropped into a world without the power or authority to make such a change. An individual who probably finds many other aspects of the culture morally reprehensible that you probably don't insist they should spend the whole novel trying to change.

"I will resist this evil!" For you I doubt there is such a line.

Finally and most importantly. Some people here need to understand reading a story does not mean you support the subject matter. You can read a tragedy tale from the perspective of the instigator and not support them, you can read a story like Her Majesty's Swarm and not support genocide.

@folker46 said in Slavery in LN:

@myskaros You are, of course, right. It's just as a black man and the descendent of slaves, I find these justifications for slavery very offensive. I will talk about other things from now on.

Your mistake is deciding for yourself people are justifying it.

Korppi

I don't generally mind slavery depictions in LNs, I can't think off-hand any cases where the mc had abused the slave(s), unless you count stuff like Redo of Healer.

Personally, I take a pragmatist approach. I'm against slavery, but were I whisked into a medieval world where slavery was a thing and had to choose whether to stick to my principles and die, or buy a slave and live, I'd most definitely choose the latter option, à la Shield Hero...

@rsog412 said in Slavery in LN:

There's plenty of flattering portrayals of other terrible things in LN's, too (child grooming and student/teacher relationships come up a lot, as does incest)

Two of my favorite genres. Not so much in English-translated LNs, but there's plenty in manga...

Folker46

@kurosov Well first off, I should say I apologize for getting so upset and attacking you.
My main problem with these types of stories is the idea of a person from a modern culture, when confronted with even brutal slavery, just shrugging their shoulders and not being outraged in any way. I find the idea baffling. These are not powerless people; they are usually the OP MC of a story and yet they feel nothing about what they see. At least in Skeleton Knight, the MC demands the outlawing of most slavery (except for murderers and such) in exchange for his help in saving the Kingdom. I would like to see more of that instead of these almost pro slavery LNs.