The fact that both Bernardholt and Tavi's legion both had slaves in their employ makes it a teensy bit clear that he's not a universal abolitionist. Then he goes on to fight against overwhelming enemy numbers at the side of ex-slaves that have hammered themselves into a fighting force through little more than willpower, and methinks that that would cause at least a minor paradigm shift away from pro-slavery.

You're being pissed off that a character that has fought in battle alongside freed slaves has shown signs of slave-freeing tendencies when it has been politicaly advantageous for him to do so. You are calling this an inconsistency in characterisation.

I say thee nay.

You don't think everyone thinks the same, but you find it annoying that they don't. Right.

...if it's not self-evident to you that judgments passed by the ruler of Alera are relevant when discussing the moral zeitgeist of Alera, then I don't think anything I can say will penetrate that shell of ignorance you've built up around your skull.

Traveling on a slave-boat at that point in his career would have been political suicide, when so much hinged on playing nice with the Free Alerans and the Canim. Making it so it would never be a slave boat again in a manner where everyone involved profits, including the owner, is an incredible political coup. Stop thinking of everyone so two-dimensionally - people, especially heirs to entire kingdoms, don't only act according to their own desires and morals.

 

It seems a lot more likely that he destroyed the chains because his girlfriend was standing there insisting he do it than because of any sort of ethics or forethought.

At that point in the series, slavery was basically just a fact of life to Tavi (though the excessive cruelties exhibited by anyone that used a slave collar more than likely rubbed him the wrong way). It's much more likely he only destroyed the chains for Kitai's approval than as a motion against slavery.


Also, making a single boat, capable of holding no more than half a dozen slaves, incapable of human transport is not much of a political coup. Even if people actually knew about it, which they didn't.

 

I have never said that I consider Tavi to be a universal abolitionist. Nor have I said that I considers Tavi's actions inconsistent.

I am not being annoyed by the actions of any characters, as far as I am concerned they are mostly rational and justified.
If you read what I have written you will find that what annoys me is that the heroes morals are so similar to those of modern western people. The author has perfectly good reasons to write the characters this way, he might even justify their morals in perfectly good ways (this is generally not done).
The reason this annoys me is because it is so common among authors, you rarely find greed, cruelty, acceptance of slavery (except when slavery is described acceptable ways), or acceptance of draconian laws, even through the institutions are widespread in the societies of the settings

Well if you argue that Gaius Sextus consider it morally justified to to drop a volcano on a city to kill one man (and his fanatically loyal army) I do not agree with you. In my opinion he did it because the alternatives where worse. He can of course be a staunch consequentialist but in my opinion he is a bit too leery of conflict for this to be true.

I do not believe that the moral judgement of a leader of a people is representative for the moral opinion of the leaders people.