[ SECRET POST #4098 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4098 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 51 secrets from Secret Submission Post #587.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Cause gladiator slavery isn't real slavery. Being forced to fight to the death is fine. K.

[(Anonymous)]

That clearly isn't what the secret says, but you seem really determined to find offense.

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt but the OP (you?) literally said "meh" and acted like what happened WASN'T slavery and WASN'T all that bad because she didn't capture women/children (which we don't actually know).

[(Anonymous)]

Excuse me, it's implying there's a sliding scale of acceptable slavery and that's not dubious at all.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm going to say firmly that roman-style non-inheritable slavery where an actual majority of urban slaves could expect to buy their freedom in their lifetimes was less bad than american chattel slavery, which was less bad than Brazilian "literally almost all slaves are worked to death within a few years" slavery.

When people say slavery in modern discussions, they generally mean american chattel slavery, with all its attendant emotional baggage. It's not insane or fundamentally depraved to observe that other forms might have different moral considerations. It's possible for bad things to be differently bad.

Also, given that the whole point of Valkyrie's role as a Maori woman in a movie about colonialism is that her life is ruined and she ends up surviving through complicity in systems that continue to oppressor (she doesn't even get a name on Sakar, just "Scrapper 442" or whatever it is) the black-and-white reduction of her character to Slave Catcher!!!! is absolutely a lazy pearl-clutching shallow interpretation from people ready to be offended. Most of the anger is probably genuine, but it doesn't have anything thoughtful or interesting to say about the film.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with all of this, except one thing which is specifically a historical point about slavery in the ancient world. But other than that, 100% cosigned, it's a phenomenal and nuanced post, a+++

But the one thing is: most of the records that we have about the treatment of slaves and customs for slaves in ancient Rome are records and accounts from the slave-owning classes, which means that there's a decent chance that they're broadly partisan and biased and not an accurate record of the actual practice of slavery. Keep in mind, if you looked purely at the self-image and propaganda of the slave-owning classes in the South before the war, you would get a very incorrect and hagiographic account of slavery, you know? So it's at least a point of uncertainty how much less bad Roman style slavery actually was.

[(Anonymous)]

how in the world do you find that post phenomenal and nuanced, lol. literally who said "she enslaves people in the exact same way that Americans enslaved black people"? absolutely no one. Though I find it extremely disturbing that ayrt thinks enslaving people to participate in death games is somehow not as bad as American slavery, and that it's okay because she's not-white and really just sticking it to the oppressors.

[(Anonymous)]

Peak fandom SJ, that's how.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

literally who said "she enslaves people in the exact same way that Americans enslaved black people"? absolutely no one.

The point isn't whether or not anyone explicitly said that. The point is that our emotional reaction and moral response to "slavery" as a concept is mostly about American-style slavery, even if no one specifies that. So condemning a character based on slavery trades on those assumptions and responses, even if it's not explicitly said and even if there are distinctive characteristics to what the character is actually doing in a sci-fi and fantasy setting. And it's at the very least a more complicated conversation to have about characters like that.

that it's okay because she's not-white and really just sticking it to the oppressors.

That's... not really what anon said. Like. It's a little much to say that someone's post wasn't nuanced, just because you chose to ignore the nuance that existed in their post.

What anon said was not that it was a-OK. What anon said was that it was about complicity in oppressive systems to survive. Which is an important, and meaningful, and nuanced distinction. The point of what anon's saying is not that it's totally fine and OK - I don't know how you get that from a post that said that someone is complicit in an oppressive system - I don't know what you think being complicit in something means. The point is that it's more nuanced and interesting, and less black-and-white.

So, yeah, in summary: the reasons I thought the post was nuanced and good is because it addressed the specific features of the kind of slavery being discussed, and because it had a nuanced take on the idea of someone being complicit in oppressive systems for their own survival without reducing that to being black-and-white good-or-evil. I think those are generally nuanced and good takes to have.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeaaaah, I'm going to go ahead and say you are VASTLY oversimplifying the horrors of slavery.

For one, some American slaves were able to buy their freedom. For another, while more historical slavery could be more transient, this didn't imply that it always was. And that's to say nothing about the quality of life slaves had. I don't think you get to say a slave in ancient Rome "had it better".

I literally cannot even understand what you are getting at with your final paragraph. Valkyrie is not Maori, maybe her actor is. How is the movie about colonialism? How the fuck are people on Sakar "the oppressors" to her, when she's from another dimension? Why would you bring racial politics into a movie literally about another alternate world where these characters are more akin to demi-gods than humans and racial inequality does not, by any evidence, exist? She absolutely is a slave-catcher and murderer. She is absolutely a scummy, piece of shit person. The fact that you're trying to reduce that because of the actor's ethnicity is frankly disturbing.

[(Anonymous)]

"She absolutely is a slave-catcher and murderer. She is absolutely a scummy, piece of shit person. The fact that you're trying to reduce that because of the actor's ethnicity is frankly disturbing. "

Well said. I found her character pretty disgusting, to be honest. Frankly, I have no desire to see any more of her in the MCU.