The Good Slave/Bad Slave rethoric in Miraculous
A while back I remember watching a video that pointed out the Good Slave/Bad Slave rethoric in HP, a concept in JK Rowling's worldbuilding that is rather problematic in my pov.
I wonder if Miraculous has the same issue. The show at first glance sure tries to subvert the whole point of slave race, introducing the idea of sentimonsters and how they are essentially a slave race who are made to serve but CAN be more than that by fighting over their control and thriving for his own independency. This is mainly what Felix's arc was about in S04.
(Note about how this whole idea falls apart when the show fails to aknowledge that this applies to ALL sentimonsters. There are sentimonsters (like sentinino ) who are good slavesade to serve therefore ok to kill, while there are sentimonsters like Adrien who are bad slaves and should be given simpathy. But despite this also being an issue that is largely debated in the fandom I want to focus on another part of this rethoric.)
What many people fail to look in this whole sentimonster debacle is how in the show we already have ANOTHER slave race of sentient beings that hardly gets any considerarion about: the Kwamis. Through the whole show, we never see Ladybug or anyone for that matter even question the legitimacy of the rule of Humans over the Kwamis. We just accept they are those tiny little gods encapsuled in magical jewels who are magically bounded to accept every command. We are given no explanation to why that is or how it came to be, just thats how things are. In this whole rethoric, noone in the show ever questions if the kwamis are ok with not being free and just accept that servitude is a part of their being, much like the domestic elves in HP and how they are inerently Good Slaves that luckily for us LIKE to serve and the only thing that should be debated is how they are being treated by their masters.
In Miraculous this narrative goes through all seasons without question, the kwamis being nothing but servants, and the only thing about Human/Kwami relationship that gets eventually approached is if their owner turns out to be a Bad Owner like Gabriel or Good Owner like Marinette or Adrien. If the owner turns out to be Good, then everything is fine and everyone is happy, while the Kwamis still being basically gennies trapped in a lamp is just a small detail that can be overlooked because "they are ok with it".
Like the HP rethoric, this turns out to be kind of problematic because if you are assuming that there are Good Slaves and Bad Slaves, and Good Owners and Bad Owners, what you are doing is creating legitimacy to slavery as a viable form of exploitation depending on circunstances. If you accept that kwamis can be slaves, then you are saying slavery is ok depending on the race and some forms of slavery are fine. Thats sure not a message you want to tell kids imo.
