A Silent Country - Oneshot

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@chinny23
Wouldn't be surprised if the people saying such things are exactly the kind of people this manga is criticizing. Would explain how such a simple point manages to fly so high over their heads.
 
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@CursedLight The point is here. They blame the mandrake factory because they think that the job is cruel (Which would be if they had hearing). But since they are deaf, the jobs is pretty easy for them. People use their ignorance, their narrow view and establish that the working conditions are bad, without anything to base this reasoning. They also don't do that to help, just to satisfy their own ego.

It's exactly like the sheep:

Removing fur from animal is bad = working with mandrake is bad
Since removing fur is bad, searing sheep is bad = since working with mandrake is bad, deaf people doing it is bad
Sheep are left to die because of their too dense wool = deaf people have an hard time to find work because the factory closed.
And in both case, people don't seek to help with the aftermath. They did their justice, satisfied their guilt/hypocrisy/ego and that suffice for them. Really helping requires too much work.

The last point can also be seen in some of the animal release, from butchery/zoo/labs/.... The animals are just released in the wilds, dying rapidly because they have no instincts. These groups only release the animals to feels good about themselves, not to help the animals. If they really cared, they would take them and try to restore their instincts like in the more serious groups.
 
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This is probably my favourite avogado6 manga so far, and it actually ends in happy fashion too mmm...
 
Fed-Kun's army
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avogado making a story without suicide and an actual happy ending again?! 2020 is really looking interesting already
 
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From any other author, I'd have some choice things to say about the questionable messaging in this ("We just want to be left alone" for minorities is an idea that has... a complicated history)

...but from Avogado, I'm just happy for him that this was a day he could think of a story ending happily, quite honestly.
 
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I think the whole point of the mandrake factory was specifically that it wasn't dangerous to deaf people. The activists couldn't understand that because they're viewing the world only from their own perspective, where mandrake farming is deadly. Because it harms them, they assume that the factory has bad working conditions, so obviously the deaf wouldn't want to work there and are being forced to. They're so convinced that the people working there are unhappy that they don't even try to ask them properly if it's true.

It's a very good analogy about how many activists don't make an attempt to really understand the people they're fighting for. They're high on their own sense of justice, and fail to see how their actions might hurt the ones they're trying to help. They think the people they're fighting for can't speak for themselves, but they're not really letting them speak. This manga shows that literally with the reporters questioning the workers without using sign language or writing, preventing them from voicing their thoughts.
 
Active member
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Oct 15, 2018
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I have a communication disorder, and was welcomed with fanfare into the largest office at my job. All the employees there got along swimmingly. The rationale was, since it was the most outgoing office in the building, surely it was the best suited to make me "break out of my shell". Cure me, in other words.

When they found out disorders don't really work like that and that being introverted was part of my nature, I was sacked in a rather humiliating fashion. So, yeah. I can vouch for this one-shot being depressingly true to life.
 
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Mar 18, 2019
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It's really cute but I gotta say that it doesn't work as political commentary. It mixed identity and dominant ideology with labor rights, which is fine and can be clever but it's so clear cut that I don't know how to feel about it. The story is like "this people like being deaf and working here but meanies hate them" and I think the themes are more complex and deserve to go deeper into it. Heck, it's sorta implying biological determinism since deaf people can only work at mandrake farms. Maybe if they go through with the manga it will work, I also ship the main characters so I hope it happens.
 
Fed-Kun's army
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reality hurts
oh wait this a manga.
well it happen irl they protest like they care but actually not
 

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