When the Villainess Meets the Yandere - Vol. 8 Ch. 74 - Don't Worry, I'll Be Right Beside You

[Ft70]

fucking hell i still had some hope left it was meant to be critical before this chapter, but the author decided to go full racist. this is such colonialist writing, ffs

(for those who doubt me: the people are portrayed as native "savages" (ew) - as in, they're slavers, they're portrayed as unintelligent and aggressive, and the main characters decide that the correct path is to exploit them for their resources)

but Diana is also the same race and from the same country as the group of bandits and while she's evil bitch she is definitely not portrayed as unintelligent or a savage

 

[maebemaebeno]

but they literally are aggressive bandits that attacked unprovoked that's simply what happened

Nothing happened, this story is fiction. The author chose to write a racist depiction. If an author chooses to write a homophobic story, you can't use that defense either.

but Diana is also the same race and from the same country as the group of bandits and while she's evil bitch she is definitely not portrayed as unintelligent or a savage

Have you ever heard of the noble savage trope? Whilst this is not entirely that (she's not noble), the fact that you're not portraying some of the characters as negatively doesn't make it not a racist depiction.

Like, I'm sorry, this is just a very colonialist mindset being portrayed here, that is not something you can argue with.

 

[llde]

I'm not liking this arc very much honestly, mainly because it feels disconnected, out of the blue. While we know that between the 2 nations there is a bit of spite (probably related to this "selling" of land) the fact that this didn't come out in the narration before (unless it did in passing somewhere and I don't remember) seems strange. The arc could have prepared much better by explaining possible policies issues that prevented the assimilation of the former Mulay citizens from the sold zone, explaining how this moved some to banditry, how this group was active (become it doesn't make sense then an active group would not be know, not for people involved in the merchant business) and so on, these bandits clearly have some knowledge on the kingdom considering they did know the emblem.

I'm unsure whatever to consider this a link to the "noble savage" trope. First in the trope the representation is linked to being "untainted by modern society" (modern by that standard obv) that allow them to have an high moral ground, while keeping practices that are considered barbaric. This doesn't seem the case. This seems a group of women, banded togheter to escape society (possibly to escape Mulay rampant misoginy, considering the targetted misandric treatements ) that however had part of society (and so aren't untainted even if by necessity of choice they reverted to a more primitve form of organization and living).
Alas we had multiple represanttion of Malay people, and while I can agree that having a dark skinned ethnicity expressing generally more sexists and misogynisitc views, could be seen as racists, this itself doesn't seems a proper link to the discussed trope. And even if we may be tempted to consider the entire ethnic representation as covertly racist, I'm not sure it would be right.
We aren't on the author mind, so I'm unsure if they decided to have the Mulay people being dark skinned and decided on this arc at the same time. It may even be possible that the arc was decided later, or it was different, for example deciding on having our main couple to being subjected to a bandit attack, and only later linking it to the more general Mulay subplot.
Considering the lack of previous mentions I think it's the last the most probable. Granted is also probable the author is influenced by their own bias.

Also regarding colonialistic mindset... these group is a sort of victim of colonialism. Not the typical one with either military invasions and resettling or spontaneous migrations (for now this idea may change), but one nevertheless. Their territory did change hands (under a bayout formula, like the US did for Alsaka with the Russians, at the detriment of alaskas russian speakers ).
Here this representation seems to be a consequence of colonialism, not a justification for it.
A better presentation could have imho avoided some of this discourse.

 

[theecapybara]

Wtf is going on? We went from sleeping together to being kidnapped by hot savages? There were really no other ridiculous plotline to follow?