r/TopCharacterTropes • u/AporiaParadox • Sep 11 '26

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

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  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.

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u/NinjaOfOnion Sep 11 '26 edited Sep 11 '26

Im pretty sure there’s no Geneva Convention in space or in ancient times

Edit: To be honest, this wasn’t supposed to be a serious comment, just a play on “they can’t violate the Geneva Convention because it doesn’t exist” though I do now know of it’s equivalent, Yavin Code, so I learned something from this 

185

u/SecretlyFiveRats Sep 11 '26

I don't know, Star Wars definitely has some equivalent set of agreed upon rules. I distinctly remember a scene in The Clone Wars where Anakin suggests something, another character tells him it would be a war crime, and Anakin goes "well, not technically."

95

u/AporiaParadox Sep 11 '26

And in The Mandalorian, Moff Gideon was going to be put on trial by the New Republic for war crimes.

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u/NewDay2517 Sep 11 '26

Also, Mon Mothma tells Saw he's violating every rule of engagement.

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u/BleedSparta Sep 11 '26

Saw, Cassian Andor and Luthen violating every rule of engagement saved the righteous Mon Mothma and Bail Organa from getting obliterated

But farmer boy Luke got the medals 🏅

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u/IvKirs Sep 11 '26

Well, he did used what was just an design flaw, to save everyone's asses.