Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2
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JaffaOrange
 Posts: 251 |
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Those saying that the slaughter of at least 10,000 are justified because they're invaders are, well, wrong. Just about every war atrocity has this shallow thinking applied. Even now, things like the fire and atomic bombing used in WWII still have their defenders. Chemical warfare is out of vogue but at the time, it was considered the humane thing to do. Keep in mind, Rimuru isn't going to stop after this invasion. They've already made clear that they want to puppet to Kingdom of Falmuth after this. This is no longer about self-defence and never was. This is 100% about control and power. The power to resurrect the dead. The power to monopolise trade and the relationships with other countries. Remember, Falmuth is worried about having a competitor over trade. If Tempest puppets them, then they have the monopoly. We just assume that Rimuru will be fair in that regard but there's no guarantee. Perhaps the other countries support Rimuru because they think they can take the inexperienced ruler for a ride. And of course, control using fear.
The comparisons to the orc invasion are apt because that was solved by removing the leadership and offering protection to the desperate orcs. This is clearly different. Rimuru has a quota to meet. Imagine if the army surrenders after losing its leadership (maybe 10% of the army?). Are they just going to have a lottery to decide the remaining 8 thousand people that get fed to our Very Hungry Slime? |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18274 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Uh, no. Chemical weapons were never considered "humane," outside of maybe propaganda. (If you have a source to the contrary on this, I'd like to see it.) |
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minamikaze
Posts: 223 |
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Sorry, I'm somewhat bewildered by all the comments arguing about the composition of the troops coming from Falmuth, based on the realities of Medieval Europe. When has the setting of "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime" ever been depicted as a realistic recreation of Medieval Europe?
Obviously, if it was attempting a realistic depiction there would be no magic, dwarves, elves or monsters. Just because an Isekai story's author creates a world that has swords, knights and castles, does not mean that the world will automatically work exactly like Medieval Europe did. Clearly, the knights from Falmuth are a professional army, not nobles. It has been explained that Falmuth's economy is based a trade route monopoly (likely collecting tolls and tariffs). Enforcing that would obviously require military power, especially if you consider that the trade routes they are monopolizing are to the Warrior Nation Dwargon on their border. Since even the King of Dwargon has expressed his dissatisfaction with the current arrangement, it seems unlikely that Dwargon would just go along with it if Falmuth did not have sufficient power to enforce it. Enforcement of the monopoly would be a full time job, and would both require a professional army and provide the means to pay for it. What we have seen from the members of this army that attacked the city of Tempest, is that they will kill non-human men, women and children who are not even fighting back. This army also has demonstrated the power to weaken non-humans to limit their ability to defend themselves. The purpose of the 20K expedition force is to exterminate all of the non-humans living in the city of Tempest and destroy it. "Only following orders" does not categorically exonerate the members of an army that does something like that. The King and government of Falmuth has ordered this extermination in order to protect their monopoly on trade routes to Dwargon. The Church forces are involved because they do not even acknowledge that non-humans have the right to live, and a city of civilized monsters is anathema to their precepts, so therefore it must be eradicated. I would venture to say, that even if Rimuru did not need to kill 10K members of this army to resurrect the citizens of Tempest, that he would be justified in killing a similarly large number of them in order to not only stop their attempted extermination of everyone in Tempest, but also inflict enough damage on Falmuth so they would not be able try it again. Leaving the invasion force intact would inevitably lead to Falmuth just attacking again. They have a strong vested interest in destroying Tempest; if they possess the means it is only logical that they would continue to try. As for Rimuru's stated plans to kill the king of Falmuth and his ministers (who are apparently part of the force), considering that the current government of Falmuth deems genocide to be a valid and suitable method for enforcing their trade routes monopoly, I find it somewhat difficult to entirely condemn Rimuru's plan. Clearly if Falmuth's first reaction to the potential loss of their monopoly was to find a pretext so they could literally massacre the competition, I find it hard to believe they would be willing to negotiate a peaceful settlement. It would seem more likely they would use their defeat as a rallying cry to recruit other nations in a wider Church sanctioned genocidal holy war against Tempest. Last edited by minamikaze on Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:50 am; edited 1 time in total |
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sirdano1
Posts: 295 |
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I just wanna point out that those 20k troops are literally on their way to commit genocide of Rimuru's people, he's perfectly justified in acting first.
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Cryten
 Posts: 1047 |
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For the above two, keep in mind that the moustache twirling dudes running this invasion both needed an excuse with witnesses of monsters attacking humans and purposefully used their super loyal elite troops to commit the massacre and threats. It would be quite easy to surmise from the lead up that Falmuth is attempting to destroy tempests relationships with human and possibly dwarven settlements. And needed the justification to be able to mobilise without facing severe consequences.
It was the personal knights of the ruler of Falmuth and the magi/priests of the Holy Church which committed the acts and gave the threats. At the very least provoking tempest seems to have been on purpose. But its entirely possible that Falmuth could win by losing. Still we will see if the human armies are portrayed as amoral psychopaths or simple soldiers following orders in the next episode. So very soon the posturing on the soldiers morality will be answered. I mean that kind of attitude flies against everything reincarnated as a slime has been building so far but we will find out eh? TBH I've got a theory on whats going to happen but I hate to suggest twists that might spoil the fun for others. |
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minamikaze
Posts: 223 |
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I did acknowledge the fact that they felt the need to arrange for a pretext to justify the eradication of Tempest. However, the reason that Falmuth and the Church felt they needed the ostensible justification of defending humans from evil monsters, was as you said, to prevent Brumond and Dwargon from trying to intervene on Tempest's behalf. However, that Flamuth and the Church saw the need to conceal their actual motivations, does not imply in any way that they actually have any moral misgivings about their genocidal plan, it only demonstrates their concern of how it could be perceived by other nations who might try and prevent it. |
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piotrus
Posts: 18 |
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Bottom line is that yes, so far the moral implications of the modern person deciding to kill 10k people, have not been told well. This is an excellent opportunity for storytelling and character development, and so far the otherwise very good show is squandering it.
On another note, it is hard to expect much here. The show never dealt with issues such as how a rural/hunter society was suddenly, it in few months, uplifted to early modern towns dwellers. Ditto for mixing cultures and races, some of which have clearly clashed with others, with wars or at least skirmishes. Easy peasy. There was no hint of tensions or trouble, no grumbling that change is bad. I like this show a lot but it is very unrealistic when you stop to think about it. And no, saying "it is fantasy" won't help. Fantasy can be serious or childish, and this show is clearly taking the latter route. Glossing over the opportunity do delve into morals the when, if at all, the end justifies the means is case in point. |
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Covnam
 Posts: 3744 |
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It would be odd regardless to have such a single unified force and not have any variety like foot soldiers (for the Falmuth forces). Perhaps this is just a part of their army that they're sending (thinking there's not much of a defense to worry about) and if they were fighting a "fair" fight against another army there would be a much larger force with much more variety to it's make up.
Yeah, it's also just as likely this is just how the anime is portraying it due to a variety of factors (like copying 3d models). For what it's worth, while I haven't read the LN and stopped reading the manga before this point, I did skim through the manga that was relevant to this episode and there was no mention of the composition of forces. So it may just be an anime only thing. |
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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^ The LN mentions the composition of the invading force as well.
One of the main differences I've noticed so far is that in the LN, Rimuru was basically having a BSOD for 3 days after he got back to Tempest and saw all of the dead, which is when Elen showed up. Also, I don't think that the Anime showed how Rimuru teleported nearly all of the humans that were still in Tempest back to their homeland (the one that they have diplomatic ties with) so that Felmuth's advanced forces couldn't slaughter them on the road and blame the monsters for it, which is what they were planning to do. |
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JaffaOrange
Posts: 251 |
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I suspect you're right and that I'm misinterpreting and/or misremembering something I read somewhere. In any case, those that advocate for atrocities as either a way to deter conflict or simply retribution almost never get vindicated. |
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Johan Eriksson 9003
Posts: 281 |
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Ok, but like...that thing you are describing...about making sure they never try something like this again? That is exactly the MO of a demon lord ruling through fear, which means that any peace he builds on this victory will be based on fear and threat, not understanding. You can justify it however you want, but that is still going to be the end result. Also, total annihilation has never been a very effective tactic for ensuring peace.
No, that is what will happen if Rimuru purposefully annihilates the army. They have established that Falmuth still needed some justification as a pretext for their assault, which means they would definitely need the same to recruit other nations for a coalition. "The demon lord Rimuru massacred 20 000 soldiers and threw our entire country into chaos in order to ressurrect his friends" works pretty well for that pretext. "The demon lord Rimuru used minimal force to force our army into a surrender and a peace-treaty with almost no casualties" does not. |
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3767 |
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^I think the context would be important. If he killed their troops unprovoked within Falmuth’s territory, maybe it would be interpreted that way. But they’re invading Tempest, and in their previous invasion they indiscriminately killed civilians. The idea that they have to use absolute minimum force to repel an invasion of their own territory, especially by a force that previously killed civilians merely because they were monsters and not humans, is a bit excessive of a standard to hold them to, and not one required by international law or otherwise expected nowadays. I think saying to other countries “Hey, you gotta come help kill these guys, they killed our troops to revive their people” raises a number of questions like “Why were their people dead in the first place? Why were many of them civilians?”. Yes they made a pretext for their invasion, but I think it is worth examining that pretext. The pretext was that a human was assaulted in Tempest, so their response was...to indiscriminately kill the people of Tempest with an advanced force and then send 20,000 troops to kill and/or subjugate them. That seems wildly disproportionate to me. Add in the fact that Tempest is a competitor for trade routes, and their pretext for the invasion looks pretty questionable, even without proving that it was only a pretext that Falmuth was deliberately trying to create, though that would put the final nail into the coffin for that pretext. Perhaps Falmuth’s allies would accept it, but Tempest’s allies wouldn’t. It does remain to be seen how they avoid playing into Clayman’s scheme to trigger a wider regional conflict.
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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I find it interesting how anime creators manage to insert anti-racist themes into their works through the use of yokai, demons, monsters, etc., to symbolize the "other." GeGeGe no Kitarou (2018) has these themes in spades, as does Demi-chan wa Kataritai.
The most explicitly racist scene I've watched in anime involved an American. From Sakamichi no Apollon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyBdPjiQpYU (Sure wish this site had YouTube embeds.) |
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Johan Eriksson 9003
Posts: 281 |
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By that logic the chances of Falmuth attacking again if Rimuru only killed the leadership or took hostages to force a surrender would be next to nothing. Thus removing any excuse for this show of force being "necessary". If he shows restraint Falmuth will not retaliate because the difference in strength will be clear and there is no way they can get international support. If he goes for the overkill there will be a significant number of people who will try to retaliate because he killed people they cared about, his power be damned, and Falmuth might be able to get international support for a coalition if they spin it right. Not to mention that other nations will be suspicious just because he has proven to be both powerful and vindictive. Even if they agree that he was justified in this case they are unlikely to ever trust him. And yes, you can absolutely hold him to that standard. Even during WWII Brittish soldiers were expected to follow the rules of war when fighting the goddamn nazis by doing things like accepting surrender or pulling drowning sailors out of the water after sinking their ships. Rimuru has already made it clear that he won't give a shit about surrender here. He will kill at least 10 000 people to get his friends back (thus undoing all the damage Falmuth did) and he intends to kill an extra 10 000 just to prove a point. You can argue that this is understandable as a person who just suffered a great loss, but killing strangers for your friends is still evil. And he sure as fudge doesn't get to pretend to care about building trust between humans and non-humans after making his priorities clear like that.
Hard disagree. Using demons, monsters, and whatnot as stand-ins for oppressed minorities shows a fundamental misunderstanding in regards to how bigotry actually works. If demons can do things like reviving whoever they want by sacrificing large numbers of humans, then that means they have an incentive to kill people en-masse. They also tend to have special powers from birth to make them much stronger than humans. You cannot be meaningfully bigoted against someone who has that much more power over you. It is reasonable to mistrust someone who has both the means and motive to harm you, and bigotry is fundamentally unreasonable. |
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yuna49
Posts: 3804 |
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Tofu-Kozou from Kitarou is simply a yokai that carries tofu. He's no threat to anyone and gets bullied by humans. My comment was meant more generally and not specifically addressed to the plot of this story.
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