D&D 5E Do you care about setting "canon"?

[pemerton]

slave is a synonym for servant

Not really. Or, rather, not without qualification.

English law continues to have a law of master and servant. (That's the quaint phrase for employment law.) But it has had no law of slavery for over 150 years.

Servants, in the sense of domestic helpers, were commonplace in the houses of the English middle-class until the First World War, and only disappeared completely after the Second World War. But as a general rule there were no slaves in those houses in the modern era (slavery, as part of English law, generally applied only in certain colonies).

So whether "servant' and "slave" are synonymous depends on context. When I'm told that efreet see others as servants, and knowing also their tendency to twist wordings of agreements, I think of capture, indenture agreements and the like. Not subjecting entire peoples to something like chattel slavery, which is what the notion of "enslaving salamanders" connotes to me.

Now my way of making sense of these various descriptions is only one way, but it's not outrageous. And it's somewhat suggested by the default social backdrop for D&D which, being pseudo-mediaeval but with some of the blemishes removed or disregarded, tends to feature many nobles with their servants, but not so many slaves (except in evil lands). In Greyhawk, for instance, the King of Furyondy is a paladin. Undoubtedly he has servants who help him dress every morning - otherwise it lacks the pseudo-mediaeveal feel - but I'm pretty sure he doesn't keep slaves. This is the sort of context which D&D makes salient to me, and in which "servant" and "slave" are not synonyms.

 

[Shasarak]

Now my way of making sense of these various descriptions is only one way, but it's not outrageous. And it's somewhat suggested by the default social backdrop for D&D which, being pseudo-mediaeval but with some of the blemishes removed or disregarded, tends to feature many nobles with their servants, but not so many slaves (except in evil lands). In Greyhawk, for instance, the King of Furyondy is a paladin. Undoubtedly he has servants who help him dress every morning - otherwise it lacks the pseudo-mediaeveal feel - but I'm pretty sure he doesn't keep slaves. This is the sort of context which D&D makes salient to me, and in which "servant" and "slave" are not synonyms.

Just to clarify, when you think of Efreeti, do you usually associate them with Furyondy Paladins?

 

[pemerton]

Just to clarify, when you think of Efreeti, do you usually associate them with Furyondy Paladins?

No. As I said, when I hear "servant" I usually associate it with D&D tropes and conventions, and hence don't treat it as synonymous with slavery. And certainly not the enslavement of an entire people.

 

[Shasarak]

No. As I said, when I hear "servant" I usually associate it with D&D tropes and conventions, and hence don't treat it as synonymous with slavery. And certainly not the enslavement of an entire people.

Right, so if the Efreeti and the Furyondy have different conventions, you can look at real life and see that even though the "English" people had no law of Slavery, the American people for example certainly did and the "no slave" English were the ones most likely selling the slaves to the Americans.

In any case, on reviewing my copy of the Monster Manual it did not mention anything in the Efreeti section regarding Salamanders or anything in the Salamander section regarding Efreeti which, to me anyway, leaves things wide open to what these two evil races would have to do with each other.

 

[Imaro]

The idea of a civilized race/species is nonsense. They are social creatures with free will and conciousness. That is all they need.

If you find it believable then good for you but telling me something is half demon (in 4e & 5e destroyers) and half beast... well I find it hard to believe the creature can control its nature well enough to get along with and interact with other civilized races on a regular basis. If free will and consciousness is all you need then every animal and nearly all monsters should be playable as a player race and that doesn't really line up with my view.

Personally, for me 5e gnolls are more in line with how a half beast and half demon race would be in my mind... but to each his own.

 

[Maxperson]

Not really. Or, rather, not without qualification.

English law continues to have a law of master and servant. (That's the quaint phrase for employment law.) But it has had no law of slavery for over 150 years.

Servants, in the sense of domestic helpers, were commonplace in the houses of the English middle-class until the First World War, and only disappeared completely after the Second World War. But as a general rule there were no slaves in those houses in the modern era (slavery, as part of English law, generally applied only in certain colonies).

So whether "servant' and "slave" are synonymous depends on context. When I'm told that efreet see others as servants, and knowing also their tendency to twist wordings of agreements, I think of capture, indenture agreements and the like. Not subjecting entire peoples to something like chattel slavery, which is what the notion of "enslaving salamanders" connotes to me.

Now my way of making sense of these various descriptions is only one way, but it's not outrageous. And it's somewhat suggested by the default social backdrop for D&D which, being pseudo-mediaeval but with some of the blemishes removed or disregarded, tends to feature many nobles with their servants, but not so many slaves (except in evil lands). In Greyhawk, for instance, the King of Furyondy is a paladin. Undoubtedly he has servants who help him dress every morning - otherwise it lacks the pseudo-mediaeveal feel - but I'm pretty sure he doesn't keep slaves. This is the sort of context which D&D makes salient to me, and in which "servant" and "slave" are not synonyms.

The point is that while you don't see it as the same, the words can be synonymous, so there is no automatic conflict in the two lores.

 

[Imaro]

The point is that while you don't see it as the same, the words can be synonymous, so there is no automatic conflict in the two lores.

And this is one of the things that's wrong with subjective interpretation of works being considered canon...

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Imaro]

I'm going to have to agree with pemerton, here.

Agent, employee, servant, serf, and slave, all have different denotations and connotations in the English language.

You can either view this as:

1. What the writer intended.
2. What the writer expected his (current) audience to understand.
3. Some general understanding of the term, based on some past period of time.
4. Some other meaning of the term.

I would agree that slave can have additional qualifiers (chattel slavery). That it can have other signifiers (a slave in Rome is different than a slave in the American deep south is different than a "wage slave" is different than a "slave" in, um, a consensual relationship).

But a thesaurus is not the be-all, end-all of meaning (as you can see if you read bad translations). Other synonyms of slave include "help," and "victim," and "thrall," and "captive," all of which have very different denotations and connotations.

For example, no one would write, "I was mugged. I can't believe I was a slave to a mugging!"

Here, the use of the word, "slave," rather than the (slightly) more neutral servant or agent has connotations. A DM is free to ignore those. But I don't think engaging in, "Well, um, slave just means servant or employee, so, you know, they probably just meant that the efreeti give them a 401(k)," is the best way to deal with it.

I'm sorry but when taken in the context of Efreet society... a "servanrt" seems much more likely to be a slave than a mutually equal and respected hireling with equal standing and good pay.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*