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/AbueloOdin Sep 11 '26

They referenced the Gods travel incognito and you should treat people respectfully just in case they are gods MULTIPLE TIMES.

Like straight up: it was intended to be Athena. They cut off Athena's head. The whole trip was a punishment for the Greeks being assholes led by Odysseus's plan.

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u/schrodingers_bra Sep 11 '26

Yeah, but in the original text, Athena is the one who gives them instructions for building the horse in the first place.

It's a crazy reversal from the original. The gods were taking part in the Trojan war as much as the humans - hence the whole Judgment of Paris in the first place.

Athena and Hera were pissed because Aphrodite was judged most beautiful, so they were on the side of the Greeks, and Aphrodite was on the side of Troy.

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u/Lawlcopt0r Sep 11 '26

I'm pretty sure Athena still ends up being pissed off that the greeks desecrated her temples. The gods are very fickle in those stories, if anything it's unusual that Athena always seems to stay on Odysseus' side no matter what

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u/schrodingers_bra Sep 11 '26

Well yes, specifically she's pissed at Ajax the Lesser for the desecration, but Odysseus urges the Greeks to stone Ajax to death as punishment.

The Greeks end up not punishing him, but that's why Athena stays specifically on Odysseus's side while being pissed at the rest of the Greeks.