Where it all started - a reason for leaving?

Alright, I had a chat with a friend of mine, a friend who's pretty much left Felarya behind, but felt it was worthless not to post the reason for leaving. Apparently they said this information would be likely to start a flame war. I disagreed because I like to believe this forum has matured since then. I'm going to post some of the things that came up in our chat to give you an idea before I comment myself.

-The philosophy of felarya, where these predators are kind and sweet and cheerful, yet they kill so many, but are still expected to be viewed as kind and sweet and cheerful. I generally try to explain that disconnect through ignorance on the part of the pred, but it only goes so far.

-Animals get a pass, they're just behaving on instinct. But preds, they're intellegent, sentient. They'd have to know they're killing someone in a brutally painful manner.

-But why do they think of the humans as food. With chickens, there's room for doubt. But the humans speak the same language as the nagas, often begging them for mercy. How can you mistake that as non sentient. And if you still think of them as food, what does that say about the mindset of the predators?

-Well, they seem cute, but ultimately, they're coming off as child minded psychopaths.

-But anyway, there it is. the more I thought about it, the more that disconnect bothered me. But it's been going on for a while.

So yeah. Child-minded psychopaths? I guess so, but we've just said that the nature of felarya is so harsh that this forces their behaviors. Or is that what we've said? Where did this all start, the whole eating sentient prey? That might be a discussion only Karbo has the answer for, but it seems that its causing uneasiness to the point where its driving people away.

I said something like "because the size difference probably makes it easy, not to mention everything else eats each other. there's so many sentient creatures, if everyone stopped eating other sentients, everyone would starve, and the plants would kill everyone else off."

Though I'm not sure; and I want to hear everyone's thought on the matter...

In hindsight, my last few posts sure have involved death in various ways hasn't it? I'm grim

Quote :

-Animals get a pass, they're just behaving on instinct. But preds, they're intellegent, sentient. They'd have to know they're killing someone in a brutally painful manner.

...They're giant people born and raised in the wilderness. They've had no education, and know nothing beyond what their parents/friends taught them, and what their instincts tell them. People like that aren't subject to the same morals as modern, first-world, humans. It's completely different circumstances. Predators don't see humans as people, because they were raised that way and don't know any better. They were taught that humans are tasty treats, so unless that view get challenged, that is what they grow up to believe.

Humans are intelligent, but we've still killed people for things like...being a witch for example. They believed they were executing an agent of Satan who would have destroyed their entire village. We look at it now and go "That was brutal! How could they be so stupid!" but, in the time period it happened in, they really believed it, due to a lack of education and the social circumstances.

You cannot look at a primitive culture through the views of the modern first-world. Its a completely different set of circumstances and a completely different social environment.

Quote :

But why do they think of the humans as food. With chickens, there's room for doubt. But the humans speak the same language as the nagas, often begging them for mercy. How can you mistake that as non sentient. And if you still think of them as food, what does that say about the mindset of the predators?

It says that they are predators who eat what they perceive as food. Its as simple as that. Whether humans are intelligent or not is irrelevant to them. They don't consider them people, they consider them food. Barring rare examples, there's nothing more complicated, or malicious behind it than that.

Quote :

Well, they seem cute, but ultimately, they're coming off as child minded psychopaths

They aren't psychopaths though. They were just raised a different way. We tend to equate intelligence with personhood, largely because we're the only intelligent species on this planet. In Felarya, the preds...don't. They're raised to see people of a certain size as food, as a snack. There's nothing malicious about it, that's just the way they were raised and the way their world works. They're predators, they're gigantic people who have lived their whole lives in the wilderness. They also are not human. They don't have the same morals, or the same instincts.

I think most of the issues are because this person is trying to apply our world's rules to an alien world. That just isn't the way to do it. Take Warhammer 40,000 for instance. If you ONLY look at it through the lens of our world, its a terrible place full of death, suffering and totalitarianism. But if you push aside your preconceptions, and look at the setting from a different perspective, its a pretty interesting place, that is basically epic-fantasy in space.

Addendum: Also, remember, about 70% of the writing in the Felarya community is...bad. That's a factor too.

I admit, some of these things bother me at times, but then I remind myself that [insert what rcs and Bael just said here]. Preds have little to no reference level, basically no way of knowing any better. In a couple of ways, you could say they're basically animals themselves. Their cheif concern is survival.

In short: Pred gotta eat to survive. Oh look, tiny screamy wriggly thing! Nom. Pred can live a little longer now. All other factors non applicable. Not a whole lot more to add there.

rcs619 wrote:

Addendum: Also, remember, about 70% of the writing in the Felarya community is...bad. That's a factor too.

Alright.......all I can say is, that reason can very well be what drives a lot of people, on all sides away from the group the writing, good bad or indiffirent it matters not, all I can say is this.

When we come and submit to something we have to fully accept each and everything that comes with it, and I mean everything. I personally wouldn't blame people for leaving the group who just didn't know or accept every little thing Felarya related, I can understand them completely and personally can sympathize for a lot of them.

I know I'm not a good writer, and that I make a lot of typo errors in my work, and I'm not the best or one of the best (and never plan to be) all I know is, I just am a simple young man who just wants to do whatever to make myself and my family and friends happy especially after losing everything I have in life. I'll admit the only reason I'm really going on with my writing even though its been rejected is the fact my family approve of it *which as an FWI to everyone is a big deal with my family and our ways* and because my friends/fans want to see more of my work and don't want it to just die out, and be forgotten like many other things already have.

I usually just stay away from things, but every now and then just to show I have emotions and feelings of my own, and that I'm not just some robot you can say or do whatever whenever you want with me and just let things slid *for me letting anything slid is as bad as letting a criminals crimes slid* and that I know when somethings cross the line, when they do I react, last year I can't help but think because I reacted on something, that seemed truly wrong and evil *and in my families eyes.......I don't even want to detail* to me that I got demonized for it and just because of the art not the person behind it at all *its never the case of me being mad at the creator/auther just gets to me when I see or read that stuff when it just comes in out of nowhere* and I'm sure a lot of the members leave because they feel they've been demonized, or because of stuff like that.

I just can't help but wonder.........what is the group, and the world coming to these days, something just tells me deep down in my gut, that things like what I reacted towards may very well destroy the group. Just giving my personal nuetral thoughts on the matter, I know this post may very well make people angry and/or hate me but I accepted that when I made this post. Just I accepted that would happen with my writing, and accepted that would happen when I joined the group *and every other group I'm in* I'm not pointing fingers or hands at anything or anyone, just giving personal thoughts on the matter since it seems personal thoughts are wanted in the group.

Solomon, this is not about you. It's about the reasons that some people might have to shy away from Felarya. I seriously doubt Cliff was even thinking on you when talking about it :/

I'm with Cliff when it comes to the predators, but I'd also have to say that one must keep in mind that, after all, the giant predators are not. HUMAN. We're looking at something that looks like us, but is a completely different being. It's not just about the way they're raised, we can't really expect a creature that only has superficial resemblance to us to have the same morality or reasoning that we do. Sure, some might change their mind about eating us, but at large the majority of the predators out there are pretty much animals. Intelligent, talking, but still animals

I can understand your friend, Bael, about the mindsets of many predators, but for myself... well, there it goes:

We are not talking of the same morals as us human beings. We are talking of gigantic people that might see smaller ones more as food than someone they could relate with, maybe through their education or the lack of so.

Sure, for us, it is brutal and I treated this aspect as a 'horror story' in my first writing contact with this setting, but this is, after all, fiction. Not real. There isn't a jolly Crisis - taking the best example of "childish" mindset - out there waiting for the next pack of humans to come and fill her stomach. We are not approving of certain behaviors, we are just representing them in a world of fiction where there are species with a very different set of morals.

Also, Felarya is a world mostly ruled by the law of the strongest: you live or you die, to survive or to get killed, to eat or to be eaten. I've accepted that and I accept that many things can happen, and I want to reflect that. You can have predators hunting, but also many other kinds the stories, you can even left the preds out of the equation and it'll work!

Also, Solomon, don't take Cliff's comment as something personal, please. 70% is a large percentage, the community is very big and I highly doubt he was thinking of someone in particular when he made that comment.

Sometimes it bothers me as well, but you have to remember 3 things:

1. In most other countries, the standards of living and education are far different. There's never one universal standard. Such would be the case with Felarya. Since there is no standard telling them what's right and what's wrong, of course they won't consider the repercussions of their actions. Bonus points if you consider that there really aren't repercussions to them. Eating humans doesn't harm the predators, so why would they consider it wrong? To consider it wrong you'd need to have that taught to you by a parent or older guardian who also considers it wrong.

2. The inner workings of the minds of predators could be COMPLETELY different from the ground up, in comparison to what we know. Imagine it like a person from Earth trying to force their ideals upon an alien who has traveled to other planets and even other planes of reality. Really, at best the human will only understand 3-4 dimensions of existence, when the alien could understand hundreds.

3. It primarily started out as a fetish realm, so there will be bumps along the way trying to expand it from just that.

That's what I feel anyway.

Hey kids, remember when we treated people from different countries as sub-humans rather than people? Remember when we murdered somebody, even a member of our own family, for something dumb like disobeying? Remember when we saw black people as object just because they had a different skin color? Those were good times, innit?

Now, think of this, and then think of the giant monster chicks eating little people.

Well, Sean, a work of fiction doesn't have to define someone's mindset. I'm in no way close to anything a predator would think of. xD

Also, I think we all have evolved beyond those things you mention.

Consider this: if there were tiny, 3 inch tall people on Earth, how do you think us humans would have treated them through history?
It might not have been om-nomnomnom all the time, but I don't think it would have been pretty...

So are humans, as a rule, evil? I'd be tempted to say yes for a number of reasons, but I've slowly come to realize that it's not that simple.
But that's my modern, peace loving, life respecting upbringing doing the talking. A tiny person would be safe with me because of this, but it certainly wouldn't be safe everywhere on earth even now, even in a 'civilized' country. (Of course our society would call these people who harm tinies abominably evil and persecute them, but it would still happen.)

So then are predators, as a rule, evil? Should they never be sympathized with, no matter what else they do or how else they act?
I think that, given the circumstance, the typically portrayed predators in stories are a lot nicer to small folk than they need to be. Many of them don't even seem to think eating a human hurts them... So again, it isn't that simple.

This type of moral dilemma is part of what makes felarya so emotionally engaging. I know I feel strong conflicting emotions towards well written predator characters, and as far as I'm concerned that's how I think it should be... I don't like stories where everything is black and white.
I can sympathize with, and very much like predators some of the time, but still feel bad when they eat somebody. I know some people would immediately be driven away by this, and that's perfectly fine if they don't like it, regardless of if they did or didn't spend time reflecting on the morality of these characters as I have. Because as much as we would all like morality to be objective, it isn't.

But isn't that what makes fiction fun in the first place? Reading, writing and drawing about things that are different than what we see in daily life?

Feadraug wrote:

Well, Sean, a work of fiction doesn't have to define someone's mindset. I'm in no way close to anything a predator would think of. xD

Also, I think we all have evolved beyond those things you mention.

I just wanted to point out that throughout history, we weren't exactly above the giant man-eating monster ladies. Also, very minor, but the word "gay" used to have a perfectly innocent meaning until modern life made it not-so-innocent anymore. And pretty much, just like Archvile pointed out, the problem is much more complicated than that, which a lot of "haters", for a lack of a better term, oversimplify this conundrum.

Oh, then I misunderstood it quite a bit (a lot), my bad. But it's a good point to take in account, anyways. We aren't saints, so to speak, and yes, these matters are more complex, complex enough to not just simplify them.

Quote :

Also, Solomon, don't take Cliff's comment as something personal, please. 70% is a large percentage, the community is very big and I highly doubt he was thinking of someone in particular when he made that comment.

I really wasn't thinking of anyone in particular, much less anyone on this forum.

Also, when I say something is "bad" writing, I don't mean typos and grammar usually (unless its so bad the story is painful to read). When I say something is bad writing, I'm referring to poorly thought out or implemented characters, the usage of mary-sues and/or self-inserts, plots that make no sense and horrible misuse/exploitation of the canon.

I don't care if there's a couple typos. I make typos, I'm not a professional writer, this is just a hobby. I don't care if you deviate from the canon a little to explore or try out new ideas. I've done that too, like when I was trying out new ideas for the Isolon Fist. "Bad writing" to me, is something that is disrespectful to the setting, or is just painful to read because of the characters or plot involved. There is plenty of that around, just ask Mr. Nobody about some of the stuff he's read on DA.

Those types of stories, and the quantity they get produced in, are what have generated these stereotypes and have allowed them to persist, even after Felarya has grown up and developed so much over the years.

To be honest, Bael, someone who disagreed with any of us taking that point of view into account probably had no reason to have any interest in Felarya in the first place. Your friend's gotta do what's best for him- and that which disagreed with him is a central theme to Felarya after all.

As for reasons for leaving, well, some of us simply run out of interest, or discover something else. There's a couple people I talked to who don't come around anymore. One of them told me they had lost all interest in Felarya when they couldn't finish their story, and decided to do something else in the meantime, they found another fandom where they had more fun, and a better shot at making it canon. The other told me he had had a pretty fun run, but that he wanted to move on to something with central themes that personally interested him more than... well, giant chicks that eat people.

Wow. Cliff, that was a truly excellent explanation.

I agree, or rather, concur. It's like morality with aliens: different environments, wildly different values.

"Man is born good. It's the society that corrupts him." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

That says it all. Ya, Crisis was probably, like every baby, adorable and at none instant was she evil. But yeah, the society in which she lives in (in this case: Wilderness) has taught her how to live her life. They are still "good people", but they've been infected by other things.

Take a look at an utopist society. It's pretty cool. But just drop one dollar, and see how it collapses. This is just an example.

In fact, one particular attrait of Felarya for a writer is to make his character lovable for the reader, and yet a terrible monster for a normal human in the story. That's why writing for felarya is a huge challenge: you have to deal with these...bonds.

Tons of good points here, I doubt I will be able to add anything new. ^^'
But anyways, yea, what you are refering as a problem here is practically the essence of Felarya, it has always been this way and will always be (and as it has been say, if it's something you don't like ... well then it's pretty hard you will like Felarya)
I can understand that you feel uneasy with it, none of us would be fine with this if this was for real (and that for the simple reason that humans here don't have any major predator ... other than themself in a certein way). We are not used to be considered a prey by another being, and even less by a sentient one.
Buuut... that's how it works here, to them we are just another kind of animal with the ability to speak, and if they haven't got human moral to tell them that it's not right, then they will show no remorse at all.

I think it's less of being uneasy over it, and more of being understanding of their situation. Basically what Cliff said about why they're like that, and then sean supporting it with examples of how humans haven't exactly been any less horrific to each either.

Honestly, in light of how we treat each other here on earth, and have treated each other, and looking at digestion, I'm no longer all that horrified, because we've been just as cruel in the past.

Hey, if I was doomed to slavery my entire life without a way out (or a concentration camp), I'd rather be digested.

Archmage_Bael wrote:

Hey, if I was doomed to slavery my entire life without a way out (or a concentration camp), I'd rather be digested.

If I was doomed to slavery my entire life without a way out (or a concentration camp), My first wish in my list of wishes would be to die than to be digested. I personally do not want to die a slow agonizing death in a stomach. One of the Reasons why it's hard for me to see world as anything but a Crapsack World.

But that's just me. I still like (if not tolerate) this world of felarya because of the mysteries that boggle the mind, Fantastic creatures that roam the land, and the beautiful unearthly sereny of life. It makes good story making material. Adding the Giant Preds, it strangely reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus.

Well chances are, in slavery or a concentration camp, it'd be anything but a painless death. Though I understand, my ideal death would be quick and painless as well XD

This really comes down to basic human psychology. We tend to see things that look human as human themselves, and we expect them to act as a human would. When a larger humanoid starts eating other smaller humanoids, this contradicts our underlying perception of human nature, and that contradiction creates confusion and fear. Humans, by nature, see other living things in comparison to themselves, but predator species don't necessarily make the same connection to other species with similar appearances.

I actually imagined a scenario where a human character explained this principle to a fairy, and the fairy found the whole idea of seeing other things that look human as human very strange. Their psychology is essentially molded by their environment and culture.

But anyway, while this clash of ideals is indeed deeply unnerving, I personally think that this is the appeal of Felarya. Being creeped out by the premise is the whole point. That weird feeling you get where you don't know if you should sympathize with a predator character? That's what Felarya is. If you don't like that, then Felarya isn't for you.

Krisexy26 wrote:

"Man is born good. It's the society that corrupts him." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I also disagree with this. While there is undoubtedly some truth to this, as newborns lack many desires that drive adult humans to commit evil, they also lack understanding of tolerance or respect. There's a reason we teach toddlers how to share in preschool, they aren't born with well-deveoped sense of empathy, they need to learn it from their environment.

In the end, I do view most predator characters as slightly more sympathetic than unsympathetic, if for only one reason: they're too different to apply human moral standards to. You probably won't agree with their actions, but you shouldn't hate them for eating other sapient species. You can't fault them for seeing the world in a different light.

In fact, I'd say this is true for humans as well. People who commit evil acts are almost never trying to be evil. They either have a distorted view of the world that leads them to believe they are doing the right thing, or they are committing evil acts because they feel that they must. Many religions preach forgiveness, and with reason, as those who inflict punishment will often find themselves committing acts just as heinous as those they punish. To truly combat evil, we must approach it with kindness and understanding.

Slimetoad wrote:

Solomon, this is not about you. It's about the reasons that some people might have to shy away from Felarya. I seriously doubt Cliff was even thinking on you when talking about it :/

I'm with Cliff when it comes to the predators, but I'd also have to say that one must keep in mind that, after all, the giant predators are not. HUMAN. We're looking at something that looks like us, but is a completely different being. It's not just about the way they're raised, we can't really expect a creature that only has superficial resemblance to us to have the same morality or reasoning that we do. Sure, some might change their mind about eating us, but at large the majority of the predators out there are pretty much animals. Intelligent, talking, but still animals

I know this isn't about me at all, I was just stating my point of view on the matter is all. I'm deeply sorry if it seemed this way at all, anyway I do agree with both Cliff and Slimetoad on this matter. Just stating my point of view is all on the subject.

About the moral stuff and one individual eating each other:

I dont see any problem in that. Everywhere living beings eat beings of another species, there is no different moral in Felarya than it is here. Just look at... Pigs.

A pig is an animal humans tend to breed & eat. We watch them grow and then kill them and eat their flesh, maybe even do other stuff with their intestines in order to produce more stuff like dogfood or the hull of a bratwurst. Heck, in the past people made condoms out of fishes swim bladders! (no joke) What most people dont know is that pigs arent that dumb as they seem to be but instead they are pretty intelligent creatures - compared to others - and are capable of communicating with each other a little bit through sounds. Despite that, they are used and seen as food the second they are born and held by us humans (Exept the vegetarians). Other than some really encouraged animal-activists everyone around here accepts that as a fact, it's an unwritten law (unless you take the bible into account which says "eat what you kill") and most of us people buy their meat and whatever in the supermarket.


Now we have the Felaryan setting. Felarya has a special ability that makes this whole universe a lot more possible, that is the "translation magic" or whatever you want to call it. It translates the words of an individual into something the audience is able to understand. This way, sentient beings from different races are able to understand each other. Taking this into account, it would be possible that pigs got the ability to speak. Yeah, maybe they'd not be able to say complex sentences and their sentence structure would sound like they'd be retarded but it doesnt matter. If pigs could speak they'd say something like "I'm scared!" "Help!" "Dont kill me!". Not very impressing, but seriously, in like 99% humans say the same when they're attacked by a giant pred. Now, would you still kill the pig when you are able to actually understand what it says rather than interprete that fearful squeal it makes? Maybe not YOU in personal since you never killed an animal in order to eat it before, but humans in the past who were out hunting in order to survive would. The "Eating them alive" stuff wouldnt be too disgusting either, there are people who swallow insects whole and alive just for the fun of it or as a akward show in TV.
If you dont like my pig example, how about elephants? Monkeys? Or dolphins which are highly intelligent and achtually do SPEAK to each other in their own language? They get hunted too, especcially in japan or china and the like.

In Felarya this is the same, with the difference that we are said pigs and the preddies are the humans. The second difference is that in Felarya we can understand each other while here on earth we cannot (at the moment). But the need to survive makes them not bother about philosophical stuff too much which brings me to the second point:



The natural order of priorities is easy as that:

1. Surviving today
2. Surviving tomorrow
3. Reproducing
4. Self fulfillment (which involves interests, politics, moral and philosophy)

I think this is pretty much self explanatory.
A Predator who doesnt have to fear to starve the next day is WAY more likely to ignore the fact that little amaroq here would make a sweet snack (Priority 1 or 2) and instead talk to him and have fun (Priority 4). (A succubus might take Priority 3 into account as well but lets not discuss that here ) It's the same here on earth. Vegetarians are able to say "I wont eat animals" because they have enough supply of other food. Tell me, where are all those vegetarians when you dont have that supply of food? Yeah sure, Felaryan forest is full of fruits and stuff, but then again a huge amount of the plants are really dangerous or poisoned or just way too rare to really harvest and live from them like a farmer would. Just imagine... When every giant pred became a vegetarian... Felarya would be nothing but a desert after a few months.

Amaroq wrote:

About the moral stuff and one individual eating each other:

I dont see any problem in that. Everywhere living beings eat beings of another species, there is no different moral in Felarya than it is here. Just look at... Pigs.

A pig is an animal humans tend to breed & eat. We watch them grow and then kill them and eat their flesh, maybe even do other stuff with their intestines in order to produce more stuff like dogfood or the hull of a bratwurst. Heck, in the past people made condoms out of fishes swim bladders! (no joke) What most people dont know is that pigs arent that dumb as they seem to be but instead they are pretty intelligent creatures - compared to others - and are capable of communicating with each other a little bit through sounds. Despite that, they are used and seen as food the second they are born and held by us humans (Exept the vegetarians). Other than some really encouraged animal-activists everyone around here accepts that as a fact, it's an unwritten law (unless you take the bible into account which says "eat what you kill") and most of us people buy their meat and whatever in the supermarket.


Now we have the Felaryan setting. Felarya has a special ability that makes this whole universe a lot more possible, that is the "translation magic" or whatever you want to call it. It translates the words of an individual into something the audience is able to understand. This way, sentient beings from different races are able to understand each other. Taking this into account, it would be possible that pigs got the ability to speak. Yeah, maybe they'd not be able to say complex sentences and their sentence structure would sound like they'd be retarded but it doesnt matter. If pigs could speak they'd say something like "I'm scared!" "Help!" "Dont kill me!". Not very impressing, but seriously, in like 99% humans say the same when they're attacked by a giant pred. Now, would you still kill the pig when you are able to actually understand what it says rather than interprete that fearful squeal it makes? Maybe not YOU in personal since you never killed an animal in order to eat it before, but humans in the past who were out hunting in order to survive would. The "Eating them alive" stuff wouldnt be too disgusting either, there are people who swallow insects whole and alive just for the fun of it or as a akward show in TV.
If you dont like my pig example, how about elephants? Monkeys? Or dolphins which are highly intelligent and achtually do SPEAK to each other in their own language? They get hunted too, especcially in japan or china and the like.

In Felarya this is the same, with the difference that we are said pigs and the preddies are the humans. The second difference is that in Felarya we can understand each other while here on earth we cannot (at the moment). But the need to survive makes them not bother about philosophical stuff too much which brings me to the second point:



The natural order of priorities is easy as that:

1. Surviving today
2. Surviving tomorrow
3. Reproducing
4. Self fulfillment (which involves interests, politics, moral and philosophy)

I think this is pretty much self explanatory.
A Predator who doesnt have to fear to starve the next day is WAY more likely to ignore the fact that little amaroq here would make a sweet snack (Priority 1 or 2) and instead talk to him and have fun (Priority 4). (A succubus might take Priority 3 into account as well but lets not discuss that here ) It's the same here on earth. Vegetarians are able to say "I wont eat animals" because they have enough supply of other food. Tell me, where are all those vegetarians when you dont have that supply of food? Yeah sure, Felaryan forest is full of fruits and stuff, but then again a huge amount of the plants are really dangerous or poisoned or just way too rare to really harvest and live from them like a farmer would. Just imagine... When every giant pred became a vegetarian... Felarya would be nothing but a desert after a few months.

Amaroq has a very good point if you ask me, though I think some people make it different with the fact Felarya is more porn and fetish based unlike in real life. Anyway he does have a big point if you ask me on the subject.

Amaroq wrote:

About the moral stuff and one individual eating each other:

I dont see any problem in that. Everywhere living beings eat beings of another species, there is no different moral in Felarya than it is here. Just look at... Pigs.

There is a difference in what you eat, however. If you assume complete impartiality, make no assumptions, and so on, is breeding a race simply to kill and eat it bad? Yes. Then yes, we're just as bad as the Giant Predators.

But there's noticeable differences between the eating process, psychology / intelligence of what's being eaten, why they're being eaten, etcetera.

People started breeding pigs (to continue your example), because they're a ready source of food. A well-nurtured pig can feed several people readily for a few meals, if not days. The pig's intelligence, while better than simply "there", is still rather low. Typically, a "proper" killing / butchering of a Pig is quick and rather painless.

Giant Predators eat Humans (typically) because they like their taste and the feeling of them squirming in their belly. They don't even serve as a meal, unless eating large numbers at once. We know full well what a Human's intelligence is, and almost everyone will at least consider another human a person (if at times a slow, bad, or nasty person). So far, this still isn't that far off from certain delicacies humans have. We kill 'em in large numbers, can't make a meal out of them, and don't question their intelligence. Where, then, is the problem?

The last part. Most humans aren't killed quick and painlessly, and if they are they typically aren't eaten (or even acknowledged after dying). They're swallowed whole with the intent of the Giant Predator to feel them around squirming as they slowly suffocate to death. You can see several artistic / story examples of Giant Predators giggling as they feel the struggle slowly die. If you saw a Human do something like this with another animal, regardless of your stance on whether they're eating a "smart" animal / whether animals should be eaten, you'd very probably feel disgusted at the sight.

That, I'd argue, is the main issue people have. Not that Giant Predators eat people, but that many of them do so completely unrepentantly in a manner best described as "torturous" because it buys them a few seconds of pleasure. For many people, it's very hard to sympathize with something like that, even with the "they don't follow our world's morality" defense. Rarely is eating humans purely for survival (Fairies and a few named Giant Predators follow this pattern, but for most Humans are better thought of as a Twinkie than a MRE), so that removes the "Well at least it was for a good cause" defense. If there has been any characterization of the person beforehand, and they weren't a complete dick, that then removes the "They just looked human / They deserved it" ways to bat aside the concern as well. For the average person, it's simple: Giant Predator picked up a Person. Giant Predator ate Person whole. Giant Predator derives pleasure from eating said Person as they slowly suffocate. Giant Predator is unlikely to acknowledge any last requests or final mercies.

Now, this is not to say the average person will be completely turned aside from the realm because of this. As Cliff said on the first page, there's plenty of fictional realms / settings that have horrible treatment of humans worked into them, but still have quite the popularity base. Perhaps someone looks over this because to them it's no different than the D&D Dragon ruining people's lives for laughs to pass the years. Perhaps they view the Giant Predators as anti-heroes / villains as opposed to the Protagonist (we've seen people love games / novels where we follow the "Bad Guy"). Maybe they just acknowledge that as bad as it is, it's not changing, so they'll focus on those who manage to eek a living despite such conditions. All I'm stating is that it's very simple to see why someone may look unfavorably on a Giant Predator, and not feel the same for Humans / consider them comparable in that regard.

Amaroq wrote:

What most people dont know is that pigs arent that dumb as they seem to be but instead they are pretty intelligent creatures - compared to others - and are capable of communicating with each other a little bit through sounds.

They're relatively smart, but there's still the intellectual divide. The average Giant Predator is about as smart as a Human - arguably less / more specialized since most grow up without any true education besides "This is how to be a good hunter" in addition to having extremely small monkeyspheres - while a Pig is noticeably less intelligent than Humans, (most) Primates, Dolphins, etcetera.

Amaroq wrote:

Now we have the Felaryan setting. Felarya has a special ability that makes this whole universe a lot more possible, that is the "translation magic" or whatever you want to call it. It translates the words of an individual into something the audience is able to understand. This way, sentient beings from different races are able to understand each other. Taking this into account, it would be possible that pigs got the ability to speak.

Assuming it does work with non-sapient animals, you're probably not going to get much in the way of conversation material. Your examples of what they're saying are also a wee bit biased in an attempt to draw sympathy, more probably you're going to be hearing variations on "Need fuck", "BRB Dinner", and "Sleepy sleepy must sleep". Alternatively, you might be hearing screeches of "HELP! HELP!" when the Pig's getting a harmless vaccination (which, yes, I realize would be redundant on Felarya unless it's meant to help kill parasites).

Amaroq wrote:

Now, would you still kill the pig when you are able to actually understand what it says rather than interprete that fearful squeal it makes?

I wouldn't kill a Pig in general. I'll admit I couldn't kill a pig, but don't mind if someone else butchers it to make into food. But return to my first quote's response: There's more difference between "Giant Predator eats Human" and "Human eats [whatever] from our world" than is being portrayed.

Amaroq wrote:

but humans in the past who were out hunting in order to survive would.

Again, barring very few Giant Predators, it's not to survive. It's to savor the taste / pleasure of something sapient squirming about inside you until that last thrash.

Amaroq wrote:

The "Eating them alive" stuff wouldnt be too disgusting either, there are people who swallow insects whole and alive just for the fun of it or as a akward show in TV.

If you want to argue that they have a comparable intelligence to humans, fine by me. I'll be busy looking for a rich man with the intelligence of a fly to sell some bridges too.

Amaroq wrote:

If you dont like my pig example, how about elephants? Monkeys? Or dolphins which are highly intelligent and achtually do SPEAK to each other in their own language? They get hunted too, especcially in japan or china and the like.

Again, this boils down to a very basic point that most animal examples are noticeably less intelligent, and - more importantly - that very rarely are they purposefully killed in a slow, torturous manner leaving them completely aware purely for the killer's amusement.

Amaroq wrote:

But the need to survive makes them not bother about philosophical stuff too much which brings me to the second point:

The natural order of priorities is easy as that:

1. Surviving today
2. Surviving tomorrow
3. Reproducing
4. Self fulfillment (which involves interests, politics, moral and philosophy)

Eating Humans is #4, barring a few Giant Predators. It's almost always #4 when talking about Dridders, Nagas, Harpies, or so-on.

Amaroq wrote:

I think this is pretty much self explanatory.
A Predator who doesnt have to fear to starve the next day is WAY more likely to ignore the fact that little amaroq here would make a sweet snack (Priority 1 or 2) and instead talk to him and have fun (Priority 4).

Note that "way more likely" still isn't good odds. Just because you're not hungry doesn't mean you'll ignore if an Ice Cream Sundae walked into your lap. It also makes the false assumption that eating a Human is not #4.