Honzuki no Gekokujou ~Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erandeiraremasen~ Dai 2-bu 「Hon no Tamenara Miko ni Naru!」 - Vol. 3 Ch. 11 - The Orphanage …

[Yrtiop]

Ahah I recognize he working mindset from japan here

 

[Kayyou]

Damn that's chilling. We went from "I can't let these people starve" to "you didn't know it, but it was a test and I will starve you if you fail". You can reward people with plenty of things, but rewarding someone with life (like giving food to starving children) is literally threatening the others with death.

 

[Tanterei]

@flameshadowwolf
On the one hand it does seem a bit like what you describe, on the other, and much more compelling side (IMHO) we have the circumstances:
Orphans not permitted (?) to venture out, living only by the dregs that 'trickle down' to them from the priests, many of whom apparently have fallen into a mental torpor. To such people motivation, even if achieved by envy, is more important than some financial credo.

In my eyes it's akin to getting a person with deep-seated depression to start being active again - first you get them out of depression, then they can decide for themselves whether to follow your way or not.

 

[flameshadowwolf]

@ezdez I mean for one thing the value of money is artificially inflated. In the example, I gave homeless people and orphans are both people without power in the system that they're currently in so that's why I used homeless people for my example. But yeah I think Myne should have taken a more socialist approach considering she's the orphanage director and her modern sensibilities should tell her that kids should be allowed to grow up without having to work for their food. Like did your parents starve you every time you didn't do a chore? if so then that's child abuse buddy. Also, the kids were all starving with the amount of food they got before

 

[daedalron]

@yannickq The way God's grace is distributed is explained later, but it isn't much of a spoiler.
Blue priests eat first, then their leftovers are given to their attendants (like Delia, Fran, ...). They eat, and then the leftovers from that are given to the orphans. First, the orphans who are adults (15-years and above) eat, then it's the turn of the apprentices (7-14 years old), and the last to eat are the orphans who have not been baptized yet. Kind of a trickle-down food chain.

The ones who were starving were not the girls, as the girls and the boys eat at the same time. The ones who were starving were the young kids, below 7 years old, as there was not enough food left for them in the end.
In a way, Myne's reward will also benefit the ones who didn't get it. Since the others got more food, they'll most likely not eat as much of the God's Grace, and there will be more leftovers in the end.

 

[thobong]

Thanks for the chapter.

As for some comments saying she was starving those kids, I am unsure if they just forgot about previous chapters or didn't read the dialogues. By all means, Myne didn't really fund the orphanage herself. She at most gives them a few meals, clothes and offers them jobs, which if they put their efforts in it, they will be paid, nothing more, nothing less. The kids in the orphanage didn't know anything about the outside world and the reward/paying system, so this is needed to teach them. And as someone have already said, they would get their usual grace, she didn't take anything away from them.

 

[daedalron]

@Nunally @ksen Yes, the "tomato" cover is from a festival. It was already explained by Lutz in part 1.

 

[FullDiver]

@Kayyou ‘Twas the unbaptized who were starving. This kid’s situation is more like Gil’s. He’s out of the orphanage, was tasked by Myne along with all the other gray priests to help, and did nothing. He’d have been fine without the soup/potatoes.

 

[CRay]

God's grace distribution was explained in Chapter 4.

Basically, blue-robed temple members have their own attendants and cooks. They eat first, then their attendants get the leftovers, then adult gray-robed members get to eat, then the baptized children, then the pre-baptized ones. Basically, the pre-baptized ones are the ones who are most likely to starve because there is not much left. God's grace food is distributed equally. Pre-baptized children aren't even regarded as human, that's the harsh reality of the temple.

Myne could use her own earned money to just distribute more food, but all of this has already been discussed in Chapter 8 and 9. She doesn't have unlimited funds, and she has her own plans to make books, so she can't just use all her money to feed them. This is why Lutz in Chapter 9 suggests alternatives to make them become less dependent on the food trickle system of the temple, like setting up a workshop to earn money, letting them forage in the forest and teaching them how to make their own soup. If the orphans can feed themselves, the God's grace can be distributed to the pre-baptized children, so they won't starve. The kid complaining wouldn't have starved, as he would have gotten the rest of the food that pre-baptized children couldn't get. Baptized children usually get work as apprentices in this world. In the temple, unless they are working as an attendant for a blue-robed member, they do nothing otherwise. So Myne is trying to make them work and rewards them for this. It's not part of the God's grace. Child labor isn't not only not frowned upon, it's necessary to survive.

 

[ksen]

@daedalron @Nunally
oh. thanks. I guess I forgot.
Now to not forget about that in a month.

 

[Dostojevskij]

@flameshadowwolf a few things: modern sensibilities differ widely across the world. Myne's approach here doesn't seem very far-off for someone from say Japan or Korea where the work-ethic is still somewhat draconian and your worth as a person is closely tied to the work you put out. Also, any socialist approach/program needs to be funded. If you don't have the funds to help everyone, the best approach is to support the most hard-working, which will increase funds, which will then allow you to help everyone. And as others have pointed out, the way I understood it she isn't starving anyone. Everyone is still getting fed enough to at least survive, some people just got more.

 

[tenzout]

haha now that shes already tamed one tsun tsun boy shes moving on the next 😂

 

[AlmondMagnum]

@flameshadowwolf
No one is starving in the orphanage, Myne saw to that by having extra food delivered for days.

Plus, the other blue priests will produce divine grace like normal, and since everyone else is full, the slackers will get more of it. They'll be fine, they just missed out on the rare treat of a warm meal.

 

[NoraDaimio]

Ok great, this series truly has turned from "how to make paper so I can popularise books and read more" to running your religious slave farm while training to be some noble... I... don't know why I'm still reading this. Seeing someone use their influence to win over the gratitude of starved children kept like animals by giving them soup is like... not the sort of emotional highs I'm after.

Kinda sad to see where this is going. Might give it a couple more chapters at best.

 

[Kaarme]

@flameshadowwolf The socialist approach was already in effect: The Party leaders (blue robes) live a bloated, luxurious life, the gray-robed bureaucrats directly assisting the Party leaders live decent lives, the masses, that is, the older kids and random gray robes devoid of the Party leaders' favour, are struggling to survive relying on the crumbs the Party is "fairly" distributing to them. Finally, the young kids, useless to the Party leaders, are enemies of the People, so they can starve to death. Seems like pretty standard socialism. Main introduced a bit of capitalism, which allows her to use those otherwise starving to death as cheap labour to produce profit.

 

[flameshadowwolf]

@kaarme Leaders and their supporters living better lives than those below them isn't really a socialism only thing though. That scenario is happening rn in the us which is capitalist

 

[Zoh_Veldae]

Can't you morons keep politics out for a solid minute and just enjoy reading manga?

 

[daedalron]

@Kaarme The Bookworm society isn't socialist at all, nor is it capitalist per say. It's pure feudalism, with the nobles as the top of society, a bourgeoisie with the upper middle class merchants, and the commoners at the bottom of the totem pole.

 

[welcome2atlantis]

Ah... the buttered potatoes look good... now I crave for some...

 

[Kaarme]

@flameshadowwolf China was a pure socialism after the WW2. Millions upon millions of ordinary people starved to death. Then they reintroduced capitalism. Now it's the second richest country in the world and nobody's starving. When you have capitalism, the average level of prosperity increases, which will both directly and indirectly prevent more people from suffering from hunger. Of course capitalism without state control would lead to a corporate dystopia. Perhaps one day the world will see that as well, though I hope I'll die before having to witness it outside of movies and games.

@daedalron It was sarcasm I used to compare the situation in the temple to the socialist realism.