cry havoc

I think (I am not entirely sure, but I think) that this trend of the 'demon' being the victim and the one to whom succor is really due is relatively recent in Japanese culture. I'd be very interested in knowing where it came from, actually. If you go back to the really early stories, the Konjaku Monogatarishu or the Ujishu collections, the strange and non-human creatures are treated really really really badly and it is implicit that humans have every right to do so. Even the later reworkings of folktales tend to have the strange creatures getting victimized (robes stolen, promises broken, etc.) and while there might be some pathos on their behalf it's mostly reserved for the human who stepped on his own dick. I wonder when the Other gained the kind of value in its own right that these two series show.