What types of prejudice do you see most often in Lightnovels or dislike the most?
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The one I see most often is between Nobles and Commoners. The most egregious examples will even have the commoner (or in some cases, lesser noble) getting ostracized even as they perform deeds of amazing skill. Despite their obvious talents, people will still dismiss them as a lowly commoner, filthy peasant, “Backwater Barons” or “Country Bumpkin”. It happens so often it loses meaning.
Worse is when status is used as a writing shortcut. If it’s the MC with poor status, then you want to support him. If it’s the Villain with too much status, then you want to despise him. It’s often used as a lazy writing crutch.
However that doesn’t mean status can’t be done well. Trapped in a Dating Sim I think did this pretty well, with Leon getting recognition for his achievements and gaining status, much to his chagrin. The Villainess is a SS+ Rank Adventurer also parodies the usual status tropes in its humor. And of course, Ascendence of a Bookworm uses status as a major plot device while diving deep into its society’s machinations.
Yes, nobles/commoners is the other easy answer. Too often nobles are depicted as seeing no worth in commoners at all. I prefer the Bookworm/Wild Game approach where they want commoners to obey blindly but are ultimately aware that they are dependent on their commoners.
Since I’m the first to answer I get to take the easy one: racial prejudice against beast people. It’s the obvious answer since it’s expected that the reader is on the side of the cute cat girls. There is zero depth. Cat girls = cute --> people against cat girls = bad. I’m 100% on board with that, but I’d like to see some more nuance every once in a while. A very good example of what I’d like to see more of would be in “Zilbagias the Demon Prince”. It’s really a standout title in that regard.
[singing]Only a cat girl can call another cat girl cat girl ♫♫
For sure. It often extends to elves and stuff to. “Why are you talking with that DEMI?!” Even though in many instances the demi human races are superior to humans they are still shunned and oppressed.
As much as I like the Shield Hero anime, it really messes with this trope. Raftalia is a beast person slave. But because she’s cute and a little girl spear jerk wants to “rescue” her. And then Spear jerk hates Filo when she’s a bird but loves her when she’s a cute little girl.
I did enjoy Reincarnated as a Sword as it was blue cats and other beast people oppressing the black cats and not so much humans just looking down on beast people. Felt less contrived that way.
