"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/RuafaolGaiscioch]

Also I’m not sure if perfidy was a forbidden act at that point in history.

[u/EspacioBlanq → u/RuafaolGaiscioch]

I think for perfidy to be even a conceivable tactic, it must be dishonorable.

If perfidy was considered a standard option to take, no one would actually spare surrendering soldiers or lower their guard around them and therefore no one would fall for it.

[u/RuafaolGaiscioch → u/EspacioBlanq]

True, but also, the Trojan situation isn’t exactly “false surrender” either. It’s just trickery, and ancient war is chock full of trickery.

[u/TheOtherWhiteCastle → u/RuafaolGaiscioch]

Heck, the Trojans immediately kill the one person doing the fake surrender in Nolan’s adaptation.

[u/ab_od6851 → u/RuafaolGaiscioch]

It is. Theres a reason why older military theorists and thinkers tried so hard to define what counts as perfidy and what counts as a stratagem of war.

Can't have militaries just killing able bodied people everytime they encounter them.