Is Obi-Wan Kenobi a war criminal? ‘Star Wars’ fans discuss

In canonical Star Wars continuity, the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi has played many roles; master, learner, wise old man, crazy old hermit, swashbuckling interplanetary superhero, and babysitter to Jar Jar Binks. But according to one popular fan theory, the Clone Wars movie added another notch to the belt of Old Ben Kenobi: war criminal. And one redditor has had enough with people dragging Kenobi’s good name through the mud.

In Clone Wars, Obi-Wan, a high-ranking officer in the forces of the Republic, surrenders to separatist General Loathsom. During a negotiation for terms of surrender, a battle continues in the background, and the forces of the Republic eventually win the day. The controversy stems mostly from the fact that Obi-Wan was apparently just negotiating in bad faith, using an intergalactically-recognized protection of surrender as a war tactic.

The problem that this tactic raises is that on Earth, it is a war crime called “perfidy.” According to the U.S. Naval Handbook, as quoted on the website for the International Committee of the Red Cross, an international nonpartisan organization that brings relief to prisoners of war, the definition of perfidy is:

“Acts of perfidy are deceptions designed to invite the confidence of the enemy to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protected status under the law of armed conflict, with the intent to betray that confidence.”

But redditor “ClearlyClaire,” a former U.N. Model Student, laid out a spirited defense of Obi-Wan’s underhanded tactics, beginning with the defense that in space nobody can hear you complaining about the Geneva Convention:

The fact remains, as pointed out by other redditors, that Obi-Wan’s use of the surrender as a stall tactic can have a negative impact on the Republic’s forces the next time they actually need to surrender. Then again, even the greatest military mind, when up against a life-or-death situation, will do what it takes to get his or her people home safely. In short, this is the kind of moral grey area that Star Wars famously does horribly and thankfully Obi-Wan never committed a war crime again.