Putting this in writing because, at heart, this is a writing issue for me.

I'm reading a story about a man who's portrayed as this super compassionate person when he nurses a goat back to health and in between chapters he's hungrily eating lamb stew. Like do you know where that comes from?

It's really annoying because it's just so jarring. I'm not saying that you can't be a good person while eating meat, but I wish it wasn't that thoughtles. It's a trope that's frustratingly common.

One of the most famous examples is Steven Universe. I try to go easy on the character, given his youth and upbringing, but the writers should have addressed it. I won't expect veganism right off the bat, but it felt strange that his thoughts on eating meat didn't come up any time he ate meat. And eating meat shows up in several plot-intensive scenes. It's a shame too because he's a half human and half alien that doesn't need to eat. And the plot features themes of oppression and imperialism.

I just wish character writing wasn't so bad sometimes. Just give your main character a different trait if you want to describe eating meat. It's not that hard, is it?

-edit: I'm not trying to spark another struggle session, I just hate seeing character disconnects like that where it's not even brought up. It's legit just bad writing. You can have a protagonist eat meat and still have a good person.

The particular story I was reading featured a contemporary adult temporarily living at a farm. He cares about particular animals there but the author makes a fumble by not even drawing a connection between the goat he befriends and the ones he eats. If his personality wasn't such a Mary Sue, and the author didn't mention it every five pages, I could've ignored the dissonance.

  • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    uhhh a game animal is literally one that you hunt. It's a category differentiator between them and livestock, fish, and wild animals we don't find suitable for hunting,

    Multiple US states have a "Department of Fish and Game" , there's literally a 19th century british law called "The Game Act" and so on.

    It's only an abstraction to the extent that I don't care to try to remember what part of the country an old acquaintance grew up in and try to work out what game animals were available to his family.

    • Dryad [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I know what the word game means, but thanks for carnistsplaining

      It's abstract language similar to "man dies in officer-involved firearm-related event." What you call "game" I call living beings with thoughts and feelings who dont want to die.