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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435

u/[deleted] Sep 11 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

210

u/arisubabe Sep 11 '26

109

u/Mummiskogen Sep 11 '26

The geneva SUGGESTION

59

u/Femcel_Bambi Sep 11 '26

Come my child soldiers!

22

u/Kamen_master1988 Sep 11 '26

Given that the clones rapidly grow “we can grow them in about half the time” they are quite literally bred for war child soldiers.

9

u/Jedal_1 Sep 11 '26

I love clowns!

1

u/Leprosy_Disease Sep 11 '26

Full Metal Jacket!

15

u/ihavewaytoomanyminis Sep 11 '26

You leave the Canadians out of this.

1

u/zrice03 Sep 11 '26

Star Wars Universe: "What's Geneva? Do they have Falcons on that planet?"

1

u/ZealousidealComb7891 Sep 11 '26

The Geneva Checklist...

32

u/2leftf33t Sep 11 '26

I’m going to commit various warcrimes!

5

u/ButterflyLife4655 Sep 11 '26

Chopper and R2: get in, loser, we're committing war crimes

2

u/Hopeful_Video_3803 Sep 11 '26

"No i said war CRY"

2

u/2leftf33t Sep 11 '26

Oh! IM GOING TO COMMIT VARIOUS WARCRIMES!!!

2

u/Hopeful_Video_3803 Sep 11 '26

ILL BE WANTED IN EVERY COUNTRY

19

u/UnDeadPuff Sep 11 '26

Ani ready to spread his mustard gas.

7

u/Odd_Cartoonist7433 Sep 11 '26

What about his french dressing gas?

12

u/UnDeadPuff Sep 11 '26

Fr*nch? Not sure the galaxy is ready for that kind of war crime.

2

u/Odd_Cartoonist7433 Sep 11 '26

So no french dressing gas?

4

u/UnDeadPuff Sep 11 '26

No, we're all out of french dressing sauce for the gas machine.

5

u/Odd_Cartoonist7433 Sep 11 '26

Daagh that's the one I wanted... Guess I'll huff this dry then...

4

u/MOVES_HYPHENS Sep 11 '26

To be fair, the Geneva Checklist doesn't exist yet in the Star Wars setting

3

u/Thewhimsicalsteve Sep 11 '26

To be fair, the Geneva Convention happens way way after the Clone Wars or the Trojan War.

3

u/EscapedFromArea51 Sep 11 '26

The Geneva checklist

3

u/Usful Sep 11 '26

The Geonosis Convention?

1

u/SenritsuJumpsuit Sep 11 '26

The Jedi long before film era sided with heartless mantis things that lied inorder to avoid being stopped from making another species extinct, many civilians perished because of this all because over the thousands of years post Sith War the Senate was rotting and ensnaring the Jedi Order as a resource that hardly questions their bosses.

1

u/Classiclevine Sep 11 '26

So, the Geneva Check-list?

1

u/link3945 Sep 11 '26

Geneva conventions are more of a guideline for Anakin.  Chopper, though, treats them like a checklist.

1

u/certainlynotdio Sep 11 '26

You mean the Yavin code?

1

u/ZealousidealComb7891 Sep 11 '26

Wait... he's space canadian ?