Fridge / How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom

• Fridge Logic: Dragons' human forms are born Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous, but shift to take on masculine or feminine forms based on the sex of their humanoid riders, who are also their mates. The author evidently didn't consider the possibility of a gay dragon rider.
  • Or they just don't allow gay dragon riders, since they're supposed to be mates that, ya'know, mate.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Ichiha created a functional catalog of monsters at 10 years old. In other words, he’s a Pokémon protagonist.
• Project Lorelai: When Souma institutes this program in Amadonia after the annexation of Van, it is more than just giving some entertainment to the people in Amadonia to pacify their hatred of Elfrieden and show the freedoms Elfrieden enjoys. Each initial member, Chris Tachyon, Pamille Carol, Nanna Kamizuki, and with Aisha Udgard as co-hostess are all not human or in Juna Doma's case have non-human ancestors. Amadonia is a human-supremacist nation, and so breaking that mentality is another objective. Much like how entertainers Harry Belefonte, Sammy Davis Jr., and Sidney Poitier, among many others, helped break down the racist views in the United States in the 20th Century, this mix of Elf, Dwarf, Cat Beast-girl, Dark Elf, and Serpant-folk respectively, bring faces to the races the Amadonia people are raised to hate, and will help break down those caustic and speciest views. And thusly will make ruling them all the easier.
• Pretty much everything concerning how slavery is "dealt with" in this series is a mix of Fridge Logic and Fridge Horror: Souma's plan to eliminate slavery progressively by making those handling slaves require a license and be forced to provide them an education and basic necessities, essentially making slavery a thing In Name Only (as opposed to the Real Life plans of fighting a war against those refusing to give up slavery, or outlawing slavery across the territory in progressive fashion, or buying the slaves and then freeing them) may seem, on the surface, clever... but really, giving the state-sanctioned responsibility of educating slaves, and treating them like human beings as opposed to objects, to the abusive monsters that cruelly stripped them of their humanity, deprived them of their freedom and basic rights, and deemed them subhuman in the first place, seems a tad poorly thought-out. Letting these Complete Monsters roam free, and escape any form of punishment for their crimes, seems like a good way to enable a society where cruelty is rewarded with state-sanctioned support, and violent abusers are allowed to keep tormenting their "property". Granted, the implication presented is that only Sympathetic Slave Owners would be given this support in the first place - however, the unfortunately common Real Life situations where abusers easily hide their abuse, and prevent their victim from reporting it, would point to this not necessarily being the safeguard it is presented as... especially given that we're explicitly shown the existence of whips that "leave no marks".
  • And what of all the cases where the slave trader is not so sympathetic (which, presumably, given the subject matter here, is far more common than the inverse)? Are their slaves confiscated from them, then freed? Or forcefully sold to the sympathetic ones? This begs the question of: why go through all this trouble to choose a progressive method of elimination, rather than simple abolishment, in order to avoid backlash and a potential civil war, when force will be used anyway in order to make the abusive slave owners - so, pretty much the entirety of them - treat what they view as objects like beings deserving of rights and respects?
  • On a more cultural level, asking the people who specifically (as part of their job description, in fact) view other people as mere objects, to teach them things like reading and writing, sounds similar to asking an antiques dealer to teach their antiques mathematics. In other words, none of this does anything to address the deep-seated societal issues of dehumanization (and bigotry, depending on how much more non-humans tend to suffer from it) that allowed this practice to be so accepted in the first place - thus, it's difficult to imagine a situation where these new teachers would take the teaching seriously, it's unlikely that the slaves will be viewed as "equals" even after a bit of education, and none of it would prevent, say, workplace discrimination.
  • Additionally, the cultivation of a student-teacher relationship between the one who was enslaved, and their enslaver, feels like it would allow psychological control and grooming to not just continue, but be actively encouraged by this nominally just government. And, inevitably, as we see In-Universe, the Sympathetic Slave Owner (well, technically a slave trader, but in regards to the relation with slaves it's by and large the same thing) we follow ends up as a couple with a slave that he exerted absolute psychological control over during a period of months or years, and could be argued to have statutorily raped.
  • It's also worth noting that a plan like this (requiring the implementation of state-approved education, and schools, and civil service tests and licenses) requires lots of time, lots of planning, lots of documentation, lots of laws, and lots of funds... meaning that, while it's hypothetically possible to improve the lives of a few slaves in the short term with the help of the above-mentioned Sympathetic Slave Owner, a whole bunch of slaves, across the country, will keep being abused, tortured, raped, or killed as slaves, with no repercussions, while the reforms take the required time - i.e., months or even years - to be implemented nationwide.
  • The above are countered by the fact that ending slavery in a sudden and dramatic fashion, such as simply declaring it illegal, would be a downright dangerous move for a country that has just come through a civil conflict, a war with another country, and the complete annexation of said country in the aftermath, and still has a major refugee crisis on top of all of that. Suddenly freeing slaves en-mass would result in scores of people who, however poor it might have been, were at least (ostensibly) guaranteed food and shelter on some level. These people would all suddenly need to find jobs to support themselves and provide for themselves, or the state would have to step in and provide those things for them, which would be an even greater burden on the economy until the former-slaves can find work for themselves, essentially compounding the already existing issue with the refugees. On top of that, the move would breed discontent from their former owners and those who traded them, which, again, is extremely dangerous in the light of everything the country has already been through. By taking the first step and forcing slave traders to work for the government, Soma can enforce new standards on their conduct and weed out the ones who don’t abide by those standards, and steadily bring about change in how slavery itself is implemented until it truly is nothing but slavery in name only. It’s not a perfect solution by any measure, but the act of straight up eliminating slavery straight up has the potential to have even worse consequences, which is why the ever-pragmatic Soma chooses to go the gradual route.
  • The points are not "countered" so much as "considered acceptable downsides within the context of Souma's plan". A big difference on both a moral and practical level, especially in light of the many pitfalls pointed out associated with giving this much power in government to the above-mentioned monsters. Souma "enforcing" any standards, for instance, assumes a lot, when it comes to the influence of this well-intentioned king and the people loyal to him upon the slavers and those in contact with them, and the means of doing so (which once again, as mentioned, only arguably offers a less violent approach towards the slavers, if we assume that these radical new reforms are carried through with the threat of punishment upon dissenters). It also doesn't address the basic issue of this plan (also pointed out) that concerns the ability of slave owners/traders to keep controlling and abusing their slaves, particularly in regard to the question of visible damage that would make "weeding out" their behavior an easier task. In the worst case, it's possible that a gradual solution that actively depends on the goodwill of those carrying out these atrocities could result in a system of abuse that has the seal of the government, with the "standards" being enforced merely giving slavers the incentive to find more methods to prolong their slaves' dependency on them, and torture them without being noticed - along with, of course, the ability to push for legislation in the opposite direction, given the influence and governmental support they've been allowed. It's also notable that, from a very basic point of view, regardless of whether slave traders follow "standards of conduct", well, we're talking about people that view it as morally acceptable to treat other people as property, and are not just enabled in their crimes, they're actively given better jobs by the government than the slaves themselves. From the start, there's a really disturbing undertone here - whether or not Souma's "solution" is the good one, the fact remains that there's a whole lot of unsavory implications and acceptable moral leaps at play.

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