"Good guys" committing perfidy (fake surrender) and it's treated as a clever heroic ploy instead of a war crime or something morally dubious

[u/AporiaParadox]

1. Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Anakin pretends to surrender to the enemy multiple times during the Clone Wars. And no, it's not used to indicate that Anakin is falling to the Dark Side, other characters like Obi-Wan do it too.
2. The Iliad. The Trojan Horse was a real dick move, a fake surrender compounded by a fake peace offering, followed by a massacre. I get that it was a different time, but still, most modern adaptations just treat it as a cool thing. One thing I'll give Nolan's The Odyssey credit for is that Odysseus recognizes that what his "clever plot" was wrong.

Perfidy is a serious war crime, because morality aside, in exchange for one victory, you're dooming all of your allies who might want to legitimately surrender in the future because now the enemy is just going to execute them, not to mention that now the enemy won't surrender to you and will just fight harder.

[u/Ok-Caregiver-6005]

The Trojan Horse was an "offering" the Greeks made to the gods for "good winds home" not a peace offering to Troy, Troy took it to try and screw over the Greeks one last time. Unfortunately for them the Greeks accounted for and planned around that pettiness.

[u/KelvinsBeltFantasy → u/Ok-Caregiver-6005]

*points to 'not for trojans' post

[u/Johannes0511 → u/KelvinsBeltFantasy]

The horse was an offering to Poseidon, god of the ocean and of horses (among other things), to ensure a save journey home.

As usual, don‘t trust what you read on tumblr, kids.

[u/GuudeSpelur → u/Johannes0511]

Don't trust what you read on Reddit, kids.

The most complete surviving tale of the Trojan Horse comes from the Aeneid. In it, Sinon tells the Trojans that the Horse was built as an offering to Athena to forebear her wrath after they desecrated her temple.

https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/VirgilAeneidII.php#anchor_Toc536009311

“From now on, whoever you are, forget the Greeks, lost to you:

you’ll be one of us. And explain to me truly what I ask:

Why have they built this huge hulk of a horse? Who created it?

What do they aim at? What religious object or war machine is it?”

(,,,)

All the hopes of the Greeks and their confidence to begin the war

always depended on Pallas’s [Athena's] aid. But from that moment

when the impious son of Tydeus, Diomede, and Ulysses

inventor of wickedness, approached the fateful Palladium to snatch

it from its sacred temple, killing the guards on the citadel’s heights,

and dared to seize the holy statue,

(...)

So Calchas reads the omens.

Warned by him, they’ve set up this statue of a horse

for the wounded goddess, instead of the Palladium,

to atone severely for their sin.

[u/BonnaconCharioteer → u/GuudeSpelur]

Which is why people are not using that version. Because it is not a part of Homer's account. It is a Roman addition.

[u/GuudeSpelur → u/BonnaconCharioteer]

Neither the Illiad nor Odyssey actually cover the events of the Trojan Horse. The Little Illiad and The Sack of Troy did, but they have not survived to the current day. (And The Sack of Troy is not attributed to Homer and the Little Illiad usually isn't either)

Homer alluded to the Horse in the Odyssey as being built with Athena's help.

Greek writers from later periods also referenced the story, and essentially all of them associated the Horse with Athena.

The version from the Aeneid is the most complete narrative of the Trojan Horse that has survived until today. That's the version that "everyone knows."

[u/BonnaconCharioteer → u/GuudeSpelur]

Fair enough, it has been a while since I read the Odyssey and my impression was that that was the most true to the time accounting. But if it is most complete in the Aeneid, then I'm sure you are correct.

[u/Johannes0511 → u/GuudeSpelur]

Huh, I didn't know that version. Seems to be a later addition, though. I don't remember anything about a Palladium in the Version by Homer.

[u/KelvinsBeltFantasy → u/Johannes0511]

You're right but the post is funny and its made extra funny because they got that detail wrong.

[u/Jordanou → u/KelvinsBeltFantasy]

is this reffering to the iliad? Which verses?

[u/yourstruly912 → u/Jordanou]

Odyssey and Aeneid

[u/YaqtanBadakshani → u/Jordanou]

The trojan horse happens after the Iliad.

Do you even Greek mythology, bro?

[u/Jordanou → u/YaqtanBadakshani]

odyssey then. quote the verses.

[u/YaqtanBadakshani → u/Jordanou]

The Odyssey just says that the horse was brought the the gates of Troy "as an object of guile."

The version that the above person is referencing comes from the Aenead, where Sinon tells the Trojans

Since if [the Achaeans'] hands violated Minerva’s gift [the horse],
then utter ruin (may the gods first turn that prediction
on themselves!) would come to Priam and the Trojans:

yet if it ascended into your citadel, dragged by your hands,
Asia would come to the very walls of Pelops, in mighty war,
and a like fate would await our children.”

[u/Jordanou → u/YaqtanBadakshani]

oh, so it's a roman take on the trojan myth.

[u/YaqtanBadakshani → u/Jordanou]

Yes. It's also pretty much the only detailed version of events that we have.

[u/Jordanou → u/YaqtanBadakshani]

It's canon then. Funny how they never mention it in middle or high school classrooms.

[u/YaqtanBadakshani → u/Jordanou]

There is no canon. There's only "early" and "late."

[u/Hrogoff → u/Jordanou]

We only have 2 of the 8 stories of the Epic Cycle.

The others got lost to history, but there are many historical accounts that reference them when they still existed.

The Trojan horse was in neither the Illiad or Odyssey, though it does get mentioned in the later.

There are a number of historical texts that reference the material that was contained in those missing stories.

Achilles death and the Trojan horse are two of those things. We don't have a Homeric account of either of those.

[u/Averageblackcat → u/Ok-Caregiver-6005]

Thanks, I hate when people misunderstand the story. It was not a gift for the Trojans at all and was not presented that way!

[u/Upbeat_Pen_6954 → u/Ok-Caregiver-6005]

Where does this info come from? AFAIK the Trojan Horse story isn't narrated in the Illiad itself, it was supposed to be in the Little Illiado which was lost to time. I'd love to learn more

[u/yourstruly912 → u/Upbeat_Pen_6954]

Aeneid, written by Trojan larpers btw

[u/LordGwyn-n-Tonic → u/Upbeat_Pen_6954]

I could be mistaken because classics aren't my strong suit, but isn't it in the Aenid?