used of と侮る in these sentence and ~と侮る vs ~を侮る (perhaps related to 知る as well)

Question

speaker is someone that normally fights demons, but fell for a trap set up by A, a human. Speaker has always hated A.

私としたことが……相手が、魔族じゃないと……Aごときと侮って、視野が狭くなってた…… pass out

I, of all people.... A...isn't a demon....underestimating (someone) like A, I became conceited.

from what i can tell ~と侮る seems common as ~を侮る

from 「たかが過換気」と侮ってはいけない, i assume that this is used as a quote to describe the preceeding claused just like "ミユキちゃんが結婚した"と知ってる

are both 相手が、魔族じゃないと and Aごときと attached to 侮って or is it 「相手が、魔族じゃないと……Aごとき」と侮って?

more generally

If a random sentence had ~を侮る instead of ~と侮る, i probably wouldn't bat an eye. I suppose i could say the same for ~と知る vs ~を知る. CTRL-F'ing my past texts i found を知る is used 5x more often than と知る。

After this encountering this ~と侮る sentence i realized i really can't tell the difference between ~と知る vs ~を知る either.

Thank you for any clarifications.

Answer 1

(AをBと)侮る is one of the verbs that take both を and と and means "to (verb) A as B". The part marked by と can be a full quote (clause or mini-sentence), but it can be a bare noun or a noun phrase, too. As usual, both the を-part and the と-part may be omitted.

• Difference between だと vs と before 認める
• grammatical and semantic difference of "嘘と思う" and "嘘だと思う"
• Can を used with だ/です

• Aを魔族じゃないと侮る
  to make light of A as not being a mazoku
• 人(だ)と侮る
  to make light (of someone) as (being) a (mere) human being
• 人を侮る
  to make light of human beings
• たかが過換気(だ)と侮る
  (literally) to underestimate thinking it's mere hyperventilation / to underestimate hyperventilation
• [×] たかが過換気を侮る (unnatural)
  [×] to underestimate mere hyperventilation (sounds like you have to underestimate something other than hyperventilation)

The difference between ～を知る and ～と知る is similar, but と usually takes a full quote (i.e., mini-sentence with a verb). In fixed expressions and literary expressions, noun + と知る exists.