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/Basic_Dingo6487 Sep 11 '26

I dont think Greeks or Troyans are good guys in the Iliad.

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u/Arctic_The_Hunter Sep 11 '26

And even if they were, Odysseus is very much meant to be morally ambiguous, to the point that the Odyssey ends with Athena (goddess of everything he’s good at basically) having to show up in-person to tell everybody he’s chill.

The Greek concept of a hero was basically just someone who did incredibly impressive deeds, usually with the Gods’ favor, not someone who was actually heroic by today’s standards.

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u/ProfessionalOven2311 Sep 11 '26

Yeah, "heroic" is very subjective by the times. And even then, Odysseus would've been considered what we can an anti-hero, since he used edgy underhanded tactics rather than honorably giving a fair fight.

Other Greek heroes also used a little trickery every now and then, but that was Odysseus's whole thing

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u/Dragonfire723 Sep 11 '26

It's ok for a man with impressive deeds to be a thinker- even Heracles, who'd rather just beat you to death, was something of a thinker- it's just that Odysseus wasn't "a thinker" or "a little bit of a trickster". If you remove the tricks from Odysseus you have flat fuckin nothing.

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u/deaseb Sep 11 '26

He was the only dude who could string his bow and he was killing it at sports too. 

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u/Dragonfire723 Sep 11 '26

Even his bow is a fucking trick, it's easier to string a recurve sitting down than standing up due to how you have to string it, but the suitors would'nt know that and would've fucked it up.

Odysseus is strong, yes, but he decided that if he isn't pantsing someone every day he's dead to himself.

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u/deaseb Sep 11 '26

The translation I read doesn't imply trickery directly. But even so, at one of the islands (the Phaeacians?) he participates in their athletics competition and crushes them without deception. He's not just strong, he's meant to be physically exceptional.

And yes that is in addition to his addiction to lying, which is undeniable.

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u/Dragonfire723 Sep 11 '26

Oh yeah, that's kinda what makes his lying so bad to the Greeks- he could just crush you in a battle of the mind or body, but he'd rather run circles around you until you're dizzy. It's almost a waste of him.

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u/ZealousidealComb7891 Sep 11 '26

Yeah, but that's true of all the heroes when competing with regular people. He's less strong then some of the others heroes at Troy, it's just that none of them where around the bow.