The subject of slavery became a hot topic on the forum for a few days in June and July. It began with a forum user’s quandary:

On one hand us modern folk consider slavery abhorrent, but on the other I’m not aware of a single ancient society that didn’t practice it. So in any semi-realistic setting, leaving slavery as something only villains do might be a bit naïve.

Take Sanderson’s The Way of Kings, one of the main characters, Kaladin, is a slave forced to work on a bridge crew. Life is difficult and many of those on the bridge crew are killed, either in battle or sent on dangerous errands. Yet, there is an acceptance that this is the way of the world, slavery exists as part of the social order. The character may not accept his place in the world, may fight against it, but there is an acknowledgement of its existence.

Joel Rosenberg’s Guardians of the Flame series, which I looked at a month or two ago, takes slavery as the driving force behind the story. The characters, transported from modern day earth (well, modern for the 1980s) begin a crusade against the institution of slavery and the slave guilds themselves.

When you look at the more modern history of slavery, the abolitionists, the enactment of laws, the wars, it is sometimes a shock to realise just how recent that history is. Take my home country, the United Kingdom. In 1772, the courts ruled that there was no law that permitted slavery within the borders of the UK, therefore no one could lawfully claim to have authority over a slave – in effect there were no slaves on British or Scottish soil. That did not mean that slavery did not exist.

The 1807 Slave Trade act (35 years later) was passed which forbid the trading in slaves, but not slavery itself. In 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act was passed which freed all slaves within the Empire, though it contained a staged system of freedom. Did it end slavery? No, further acts were passed in 1843 and 1873 to further suppress the trade in slaves. Other countries passed similar laws at other times, but slavery still exists. This article from the Washington Post makes interesting reading.

So, slavery was a ‘normal’ part of many cultures and one forum user makes an interesting point, “having a protagonist in a reality where slavery exists doesn’t mean that he/she should be opposed to it. Yes, slavery is bad, but only from today’s perspective. In the past it was normal and there were plenty of good, nice people who weren’t strongly opposed to it.” In effect, it is entirely possible for a hero NOT to be opposed to slavery in their culture. When you think about it, could all those people who engaged in slavery, owning slaves, trading in slaves, or just living in a culture/country that had slavery be considered to be evil because they did not oppose it?

Perhaps, just perhaps, the problem with tackling the topic of slavery in fantasy is cultural and one of definitions. One forum user posed this idea, “Slavery exists in many forms and not all are called slavery.” The UK educational curriculum expects children, from age 11 to 14, to be taught about the British role in the Slave Trade and life for slaves on plantations. Bearing in mind the young age of those being taught it remains a powerful unit which tackles the horror of slavery. I am willing to bet that other countries teach similar units, and relate to their own cultural experience and histories.

But in fantasy, in books, how much of the honest, brutal reality of slavery are we willing to confront on the name of entertainment? I’d suspect, even given the rise of grimdark, that as a plot device the concept of slavery, either a character forced into slavery and/or fighting their way out of it would be interesting. A slave rising to power, from the lowest strata of society perhaps to the highest, would be a life affirming story, one that would capture the reader though it has probably been done before (cough *Conan* cough). There are books, stories and films that deal with the reality of slavery in a more realistic manner.

We all agree, slavery is wrong, a great evil, but in fantasy books and films do we want our protagonists to debate it or to work to end it? To hate it or be unconcerned by it? Do we want them to reflect our morals and culture or be true to their own?

Title image by Gustave Boulanger.