Róta: At least we don’t have to worry about this workplace falling for that stuff! I’ve never seen a servant abused here.
Sigrún: Aren’t you all supposed to be training?
Róta: C-Captain Sigrún! Something happened with Lulen’s, uh, emotional support fiction.
Sigrún: Yes, I believe I saw this on the net. Officer, if it’s any consolation: I always thought Rødlund’s writing was dreadful.
Lulen: Captain, respectfully, I thought you still hadn’t read the Holger Saga.
Sigrún: Yes, and in retrospect, that was very principled of me.
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11 Comments
Good news first: If we assume that Róta represents the mean citizen of Sønheim, there ARE actions that, when done to a debt-servant, are considered abuse of power by the average citizen.
Bad news: “Well, I’ve never seen a servant abused here.” does not mean that no servants are being abused.
Worse news: Lulen was abused.
And from the look on Lulen’s face, she doesn’t quite buy the idea that servants aren’t abused in the embassy.
She may also have different definition of abuse than Róta.
Now, was Róta looking when vampires were drinking Leif? To calibrate what she thinks about abuse … (she was not tagged in that storyline …).
At the very least, I would guess that Lulen would consider an automatic zap at the stroke of the hour abuse and Róta wouldn’t. Probably onto something with feeding on the servants, too.
Remembering when Lulen was ordered to antagonize Leif, I think that might be guilt on her face: https://leifandthorn.com/comic/sword-dancers-923/
I don’t know whether or not she (or Rota) would categorize that incident as “abuse”, but it’s definitely not a great way to treat the servants and it could be suggestive the management’s willingness to do other, worse things for related reasons.
Agreed, Flyboy.
HKMaly: Leif ‘consented’ to that. it was ‘an honor’ and ‘legal’.
I wonder if non-servants would have been allowed to volunteer.
I wonder if any of the non-servants would have.
Allowed, definitely. But probably not encouraged.
Awww, “emotional support fiction”. What a good description.
Devil’s advocate: unfortunately, Lulen DID participate in picking on a servant: back in the “friendly training” arc. That looks more like a guilty look to me. Now, we have had first-person accounts of Lulen’s private thoughts: she doesn’t necessarily LIKE it, and we know from the arc where the guards pretended to be Lady Szelanya for their Christmas-analog, that Lulen is (potentially) secretly afraid of Capt. Sigrun.
Also: I have decided to claim this comic as my “emotional support fiction”
Same here.
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