"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/BowlEducational6722]

But it's not limited to Anakin.

In the Clone Wars CGI movie, Obi-Wan uses the same tactic to lure General Loathsom (who despite his hilariously on-the-nose name is actually very respectful and honorable) into a fake surrender meeting to distract him from Anakin ans Ahsoka from disabling his army's shield...only to then immediately take him hostage and threaten his life.

And then in a later episode Kenobi had the gall to pontificate about how Tarkin's in the wrong and that the Jedi need to be careful about losing their honor by going too far in the war.

Master, you jettisoned your honor out the air lock during your series' movie premiere.

[u/Ok_Work1615 → u/BowlEducational6722]

indeed,

this is why i liked that part of the stories, it showed that no one was truly perfect, and how all of them where, to different extents, hypocrites.

[u/gilnockie → u/Ok_Work1615]

i just never know how much of that is intentional though

[u/BowlEducational6722 → u/gilnockie]

Yeah the ending of that episode with Tarkin ends with the tone that you're supposed to agree with Obi-Wan unironically.

I get it, the whole point of the series is to show how the Jedi are imperfect, but that still rings a bit hollow.

There are later episodes that do show the Jedi's hypocrisy and the tone actually matches and you think to yourself "wait a minute...that ain't right."

[u/gilnockie → u/BowlEducational6722]

yeah there are definitely moments where the show delves into moral complexity but it's...uneven

and that's fair, it was a kids cartoon first and foremost, I don't expect it to be somber reflections on the costs of war all the time!

The latter seasons, targeted more towards an older audience, are more frequently great.

[u/DPVaughan → u/gilnockie]

I don't think the writers realised perfidy was bad.

[u/PsychologicalLab7379 → u/Ok_Work1615]

That, or the writers are just inconsistent.

[u/Cyan_Tile → u/Ok_Work1615]

Would be nice if they actually highlighted that though

Barely any kid watching that cgi film thought "hey obi-wan that was kinda dickish of you"

They thought "ooh very smart way to handle le bad guy"