Munou to Yobareta "Seirei Tarashi" ~Jitsuwa Inou de, Seirei Kaide wa Densetsuteki Hero Deshita~ - Vol. 4 Ch. 16 - Hero Braven, downFalls

[essensue]

Something i’ve never really understood is why an author would decide to make a volume cover have only the despicable, widely-disliked characters be the featured characters

Because "comeuppance" is basically the genre. The author knows that people don't give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about boring-ass Univas and his forest friends.

The real spectacle is seeing the villains get their shit wrecked, pointing, and yelling "Zamaaaaa!"

 

[CountryMage]

One thing I don't understand is how the hell the kingdom has been standing for so long. If everything relies on Spirit power and they mistreat the spirits why do the spirits stay? As a comparison it'd be like if electricity was alive and we decided to torture it for fun and it had the ability to just leave.

Since the beginning Univas has been saying that the spirits like to be of service to people, but all the examples we've seen of them taking over the top abuse, it was the Hero party telling spirits that they need to submit because Univas asked them to before he died. So, maybe some other legendary Spirit Charmer, that's been lost to history, got all the spirits to agree to this service to humanity and they've just never stopped to think about it since.

 

[jokerxhisoka]

Maybe bcs, they've been treated very well all this time by Univas.
Until Univas kicked from the party, and the kingdom spread a lies, telling that Univas died and his legacy is to keep all spirits to stay and working with human there.
That's why, when they finally learn the truth, that's the moment they start fighting back.
Basically, all holding by duct 'n tape, Univas.

MC was said to have died just a week or month maybe. It was said that it is already common in the human society to threat spirits as things.

 

[HVMetal]

Uhh, oh, uh maybe that "holy" sword could still be used for stabbing...? Probably. Maybe... Maybe not.

 

[sirleirbag]

One thing I don't understand is how the hell the kingdom has been standing for so long. If everything relies on Spirit power and they mistreat the spirits why do the spirits stay? As a comparison it'd be like if electricity was alive and we decided to torture it for fun and it had the ability to just leave.

For what I get from the story is that before Univas and the "hero" party. The relationship between humans and spirits was... scarce? Or probably very VERY rare...
It was with Univas that the spirits decided come and interact more with humans... Sadly Univas and his beta submissive black corporate drone mentally that he didn't saw the abuses the "hero" party was spreading for the spirits... And the braindead human kingdoms that believe every word the "hero" party said...
I presume the spirits endured the abuses because they loved Univas so much that they didn't want to waste the effort he made in befriend both races.

 

[RanginAswati]

I can't believe Holydoom in the cover has so much aura. I think she better fits in a battle manga instead lol.

Also, the shark hat. Noooo. The baby shark hat is gone. The king might actually angry because of his baby shark hat gone and not because of the water prank.

I'm curious if the sword spirit is gonna be another humanoid one.

 

[alfirizkyr]

One thing I don't understand is how the hell the kingdom has been standing for so long. If everything relies on Spirit power and they mistreat the spirits why do the spirits stay? As a comparison it'd be like if electricity was alive and we decided to torture it for fun and it had the ability to just leave.

I agree given the tone of the story, but it may be akin to an abusive relationship. A lot of people found it difficult to leave their abusers due to sunk cost or other, more sentimental reasons—even just "occasional kindness" was sometimes enough to keep someone reeled in.

Others rely on terror and gaslighting, like being told that the abused won't find acceptance and love elsewhere. The spirits were told that the Hero would be their savior figure, for example, so they should stick around for the Hero. Others were simply blackmailed, like the sea spirits here, being promised with various lies.

Others were just simply too tired to even attempt to fight back. There's this neat little thing called learned helplessness in psychology—show someone enough times that there's no way out of a hopeless situation, and they stop trying to fight or avoid it.

That said, again given the tone of the work, I doubt the author put that much thought into this, lol.

 

[lolfacesayshi]

I'm so happy, fuck these guys

 

[Kitsune_115]

get him and get this so called saintess too!

 

[nisashi13]

One thing I don't understand is how the hell the kingdom has been standing for so long. If everything relies on Spirit power and they mistreat the spirits why do the spirits stay? As a comparison it'd be like if electricity was alive and we decided to torture it for fun and it had the ability to just leave.

it mostly the problem of this manga don't care to really build up anything and just make the result of all those bad thing for the MC to fix later.
that is why stuff that make no sense keep coming up

 

[TNT261]

The difference between the spirits and slaves is that the spirits can leave whenever they want and there's not really anything the humans can do to stop them. Most of them can't even see the lower tier spirits.

With slavery you're also just dealing with regular people and there were numerous instances of revolts and the whole underground railroad and other ways in which slaves tried to free themselves or fight back before the Civil War. They weren't magic and didn't hold all the power in the world, so attempts didn't always succeed and involved casualties.

Umm, who knows. The obvious answer is that it's just bad writing. I know I say this eons late and I'm preaching to the choir, but yeah. The MC has said that the spirits legitimately want to help people with nothing in return. So like if you had superpowered beings who humans had no way of controlling, but they just let themselves get abused because they were just too darn nice. I think the idea is just supposed to be that they're so nice they get easily exploited.... of course that gets dropped for the satisfaction of everyone that wronged the MC getting their just desserts. It's really just that these stories are a power fantasy. Part of the Power Fantasy is the idea that mistreating one guy leads to the downfall of an entire nation. For that to happen in this case the spirits need to just choose to be subservient for no real reason and just stop that when they randomly learn the MC is no longer with the country. Maybe one person's kindness has kept an entire species of superbeings acting as slaves (terrible message). The story doesn't care how dumb the premise is, just that it makes people who feel unappreciated experience the power fantasy.