WARNING: The following article contains significant spoilers for Episode 15 of How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, currently streaming on Funimation.
Many isekai provide little justification for the modern origins of the protagonist. How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom challenges this trend with Kazuya Souma, a protagonist who governs a fantasy kingdom using political methods he learned as a student in 21st-century Japan. Episode 15 gave King Souma a problem that's unique to an isekai protagonist: he struggles to tell the difference between some of the various fantasy races of the world of Landia.
In Episode 14, The Gran Chaos Empire's soldier Jeanne Euphoria arrived in the Elfrieden-occupied Principality of Amidonia to negotiate with Souma for the return of its territory alongside Amidonia's Prince Julius. Souma ultimately put Julius in his own room while he and Jeanne continued the negotiations, like adults retreating to have mature discussions away from their kids. Amidonia is only one of the things Souma's court and Jeanne discussed in this episode, including mankind's ongoing battle with the Demon Lord's encroaching domain.
Jeanne shocked the table when she casually revealed she had eaten meat from a demon monster. Even Souma, who tirelessly introduced Elfrieden to various new foods with Poncho in Episode 4, was somewhat disturbed. This may be because, in Episode 4, animal whisperer Tomoe revealed that she communicated with a demon. Perhaps Souma was worried that the creature Jeanne consumed may have been an intelligent being.
However, the conversation developed in a different direction as Jeanne discussed the differences between the demons and their monsters. Evidently, the monsters attacked the empire's human soldiers indiscriminately, whereas the demons themselves used organized tactics as well as brutal cruelty. This prompted Souma to wonder if demons and monsters were analogous to the rest of the continent's people and animals respectively. Jeanne balked at the idea of eating one of the more human-like demons, so it luckily appears as though she didn't eat a human-level being.
This ultimately led to the episode's most earth-shattering reveal. Souma asked Liscia to stop taking minutes, and Jeanne even half-jokingly anticipated a "bombshell." Souma announced, "I have trouble telling the difference between races like beastmen and dragonewts and demons." Jeanne, Liscia and Hakuya each reacted in shock. Souma had warned them that what he was about to say might be considered "discriminatory remarks," but still underestimated their reactions.
The negotiators' responses to this apparently offensive statement are darkly comic. Liscia cares deeply for Souma; later in Episode 15, Liscia was terrified when Jeanne proposed poaching Souma for the empire, hastily correcting herself that she was merely concerned for the good of the kingdom. At the end of the episode, Liscia invited Souma to rest his head on her lap because he was exhausted. Upon this revelation, even she was outraged on Tomoe's behalf that Souma could ever mistake someone like her for a demon. The fact that the episode goes on to reinforce Liscia's love for Souma makes her fury even funnier -- and the gravity of Souma's statement even more apparent.
Hakuya is not so affectionate, but his disbelieving response is still shocking because he's usually so reserved. In Episode 14, Hakuya responded to Souma's criticism of his city renovation plan with quiet humility. Here, he can't contain himself, saying, "To say that goes too far is an understatement!" This prompts Souma to respond indignantly, "Like I said, this could end up being taken as discriminatory!" It's funny to see the usually collected Souma's bewildered expression as he scrambles to justify his comment, even having reminded the negotiators that he grew up in a world without demons or beastmen.
It soon transpired that the negotiators' extreme reactions to Souma's revelations were justified. The three explained that any comparison of non-human races to demons could be used as an excuse to fuel discrimination and even war against them. Souma asked Liscia and Jeanne to explain the differences between types of demons and beastmen and found that they struggled to put it into words, concluding that natives of Landia must be able to simply sense the difference. This, combined with the more calculating behavior of some demons as well as Tomoe's ability to understand one, challenges the continent's view of demons as mindless creatures.
Jeanne mentions that some demons have done unforgivable things in battle, but perhaps these do not represent all demons. Tomoe's testimony concerned a demon who chose to let her go out of sympathy and identification. If this is true, it resurfaces the potential for debate and negotiation with demons to return the land they have taken, as Liscia proposed in Episode 4. Souma rejected this plan because the revelation that demons could communicate might divide the people who are currently united against them, prompting some to try to forge alliances with them. As more people from around the continent such as Jeanne start to piece together evidence of demons' intelligence, it may become harder for Souma to hide this fact.
Ultimately, Souma's innocently ignorant observation may not imply that non-human people are demonic as the negotiators feared, but rather that demons might be people. Souma has been concerned with domestic affairs and war with Amidonia. All the while, the Demon Lord's threat has loomed over the landscape. Souma will surely have to engage with the demons eventually, either through battle or open communication, but debating with an enemy previously thought to be only capable of violence would be typical of Souma, and of this very atypically political isekai.