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Hollywood? All right? Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics.
Riki and myself are going to be discussing the topic for child soldiers in
the genre fiction that we love, science fiction and fantasy and all the rest
superheroes. And this is in some ways a continuation of one of our last
episodes where we were talking about like, you know, what, what do
we do with villains, what do we do with the people who work for
villains, what do we do with you know, all these kind of things,
And Jared Silva, who's a colleague of both of ours, had brought
the question of child soldiers and preaking in terms of the Padawans from Star Wars
and things like that, and it was we talked about it a bit on
that and realized though it was much heavier topic and one that really there was
so much depth to that we wanted to give it a whole episode. So
thanks again to Jared, and a reminder to our listeners, like, you
know, give us the feedback, all the informations on the show notes.
Just go to the Ethical Pana dot com. You'll find all of that.
Part of why this is a heavier topic is that child soldiers are obviously a
very real problem and a very real situation in our world today. And I
think when we say that word, we often think about it in terms of
some of the you know, civil wars and revolutions that are happening in Africa,
where the use of child soldiers has been very well documented. But I
think you can talk about child soldiers in many parts of the world, certainly
in Northern Ireland for a while when that was an issue. I think you
can look at the way kids of all backgrounds and all races, not just
black as me he wants to portray it, but the way kids can get
wrapped up in gang culture at young age and gang fighting and things like that.
So just a reminder, this is this is we're talking about it in
science fiction infa to see, but obviously we're talking about has some very heavy
real work connotations, which is I think part of why we wanted to talk
about it, because so often it's a fun story about kids who want to
go to you know, get to sign up and be a starfighter or be
a general, or be a Jedi. So, Ricky, what's kind of
what was kind of your initial thought process in when we first got this question
and wanted to think about doing the whole episode on it. Well, I
had been talking to you about wanting to do this topic even before that.
Oh yeah, that's correct, You're correct, thank you, Because you know,
I'm a fan of anime, specifically mecha anime, and pretty much pretty
much every popular mecca anime features a main character piloting one of the giant robots
who is a child, like a teenager, often a young teenager to start,
So I had already broached the subject, and I said, well,
like, and also like, my Netflix algorithm is recommending Enders Game, which
is a you know, a western example of this. And then I started
going through stuff. I was like, wait a minute, like this is
just a thing in like everything we watch, you had around the same time,
mentioned you've rewatched war games, and that like wargames and Enders Game are
both like right around the same time, I believe, like mid eighties,
nineteen eighties. And then there's another movie from that era, The Last star
Fighter, which also fits that mold. And then Classic by the way,
if you haven't seen it, I'm gonna include a link to it on our
show notes. Definitely check it out if you haven't seen it. Yeah,
kind of like a lost classic. I don't feel like it's even like a
cult classic that really gets talked about much these days. And then yeah,
the anime my favorite Gundam started started in the seventies, but was very prominent
in the eighties as well. So I was thinking about and it's like,
why did we suddenly get this in the eighties, And I think it's because
of technology, because computers had reached a point where they were actually a thing,
right, like home computers, Apple two see, like et cetera.
And like video games, especially the Nintendo Entertainment System Atari. So kids are
playing video games at this time, and all of these movies and TV shows,
you know, piloting a Mecca is essentially a video game to some extent.
The Last Starfighter literally like an arcade console game, is used as a
recruiting tool by an intergalactic rebellion, right. And then War Games, of
course is just like he was a hacker who thought he was playing a video
game and it turns out he was playing against like a a sky net.
Right. Yeah, it's so interesting, And I want to say more about
this, but kind of actually probably setting up the first point I'm going to
make. I have a question for you. I know that in America,
one of the things that I think really drove that change is that you started
getting a lot of TV shows, particularly animated shows, that were driven primarily
by desire to sell toys to kids. Sure, because like you said,
not only was it about the video game of the Mecca, but actually selling
the robot to kids. And like you know, we know, like shows
like he Man and Shira came directly out of corporate wanting to sell these toys.
Do you have the same thing in Japan? Like other animes that were
like the Japanese toy makers were clearly trying to like push so that they could
sell Gunda Robots toys to kids. Of course, I mean like Transformers is
a Japanese originally a Japanese product, mm hmm, yeah, and that is
probably the I would guess, the biggest toy seller in the eighties. It's
possible towards the end like teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shows up, But to me,
like eighties and kids toys, I think of Transformers and Star Wars.
Yeah, but you asked about Gundam, Like Gundam is interesting because they chose
to go less into toys and more into the plastic model kits, the gunpluw
which is still like often you know, kids buy them and build them,
but it's it's very interesting that they chose not to go as much into the
prepackaged toys and they basically conquered that market. Like the model kit market is
synonymous with Gundam, probably like eighty percent market share. And oh that's really
interesting, Okay, Like it is because it used to be like you you
would build like when I was a kid, I had gunplub but I also
built like battleships and you know, real world fighter jets. But that's that's
kind of gone away, right, Like if you build a plastic model kit,
you're building a Gundam. Yeah, I think think oddly enough, I
think Lego has mostly replaced that market. Like if you want to build a
Model Star Destroyer, you get the Lego starters, yeah, and and that,
and that's like cleaner and safer, right because you're not dealing with the
epoxy glue and and hav to like cut stuff, so there's no paint that
kids are gonna want to sniff in his money, but you're not gonna agree.
Lego is cornering in on the market, So I guess I'd be curious
to see whether those are considered the same by by markets, by toy markets.
Well, and I don't want to go too far down this road,
but I'm not really curious about it, Like because when you talk to me
about like miniatures of you know that of models that kids want to put together,
our adults want to put together and build and paint. I think about
miniatures for warfare, like Warhammer type stuff. Were there Gundom games or was
it just about like creating this cool thing that put on your shelf or play
with you, with you and your friends, without like a specifics that are
rules attached. No, they're like I mean, to my knowledge, they
are not because they like Gundam is usually scaled around one to one forty four,
and I would say they stand about I don't know, like close to
a foot. So yeah, it's not something you would carry like a whole
unit with you to a like Warhammer. You just put them in the case
and you could have like two dozen of them. No, Gundam is like
mostly a display things like similar to the like superhero figures that you might see
at a comic book store. Right. Well, and then it makes sense,
but I think it just further ties in that than in both places,
and probably I'm sure in other places around the world as well. I feel
like part of the eighties was you get a lot more programming aimed at children,
in part because of the explosion of this toy market and so and kids.
As we've talked about kids like to see themselves on screen, I think
a lot of adults like to see kids as well, because you know,
nostalgia for our youth, or just because they're you know. I mean,
I think, like we've talked before that one of the things we love about
Avatar is that they are younger kids and that there's there's just a different perspective
that they have. I think the Percy Jackson books are another great example of
this, and the Percy Jackson TV show, especially because when they were aged
up for the movie, a lot of people didn't like that, and so,
yeah, I think they're I can't understand why people like to put children
into these stories and have them be heroic, and I think that's also also
kind of awesome. What's the flip side of it, though, Why,
Like, I was you doing an episode about it? Because I think we
think that this might not always be the best thing. Yeah, I mean,
it's hugely problematic to have kids in war, Like you're you're absolutely right
that you want to have some kind of audience projection. You want the kids
watching your show to imagine that they could be a gun dump pilot. And
I think there's a there's a reasonable separation when you have something as fantasantastic and
futuristic as Gundam, because we're kind of starting to get there with robot technology,
but it's not really feasible, right, And the same with the Last
star Fighter, Like it's a funny concept. The Arcade console game could be
used to recruit for to be a star Fighter pilot, but we don't have
Starfighters. But I like it is one confirmed that the US Army uses video
games now, Like Call of Duty in particular is a very prominent one to
recruit, like whether like directly, like through promotions like in the community and
the game, or I know they have a they have like a US Army
Esports team that goes around and like act does actual recruiting at events and stuff,
and that's I don't know, like that that's scarier when it's real.
It is very easy for me to be like, yeah, like I enjoy
Gundam, Like when I was a kid, when I was a teenager,
I was like, yeah, I want to be a Gunda pilot, Like
that was never going to happen. But when you are using a real life
warfare video game to promote and recruit for the army, then you're like,
wait a minute, like this is this is getting a little sketchier because like
I want to I want to bring up, like we were talking about child
soldiers, like what are the rules? Right, Like, we all recognize
that there has to be rules, and I think specifically the Geneva Convention of
nineteen forty nine, Additional Protocol one to the Geneva Conventions states state parties shall
take all feasible measures to ensure that members of their armed forces who have not
attained the age of eighteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities.
So that's the international law that most nations have agreed to at this point.
Yeah, And it's interesting because I think we're kind of looking at how there's
a couple of different elements to this question, because when I think of child
soldiers, what comes to mind for me? First, I think for a
lot of people is like people who are like early teenagers or sometimes even like
not teenagers, you know from like in a rural world like twelve, fourteen,
fifteen, and then in a world's like enders game, it can go
to like eight even or ten. And so remember when you first said last
Starfighter, it didn't really click for me at first, because I think that
character is he's kind of just on that age where I think he's supposed to
be a senior in high school. He's getting ready to graduate. Yeah,
and so he's probably on that list of like seventeen eighteen. Part of what
that got me thinking about, and this is I don't know if Paul is
to listening, but I know topic palm, I've talked about quite a lot
that idea of eighteen or over. Like I think if you have to have
a guideline, I think a guideline is good. That's probably about a good
age, but it also a it implies this idea that like, you know,
some magical switch happens and if you're seventeen years and three hundred and sixty
four days, you're not mature enough to be a soldier, but then the
next day happens and you get a party and suddenly you're able to be a
soldier, which I think like you know, there are twenty five year olds
who are not ready to be soldiers, and there probably are sixteen year olds
who are, Like, development is not I'm not saying sixteen year olds to
be soldiers, to be very very clear, But I think part of what
else who we're getting at there with Starfighter and with what happens in real world
with call of Duty and things like that, is that it's not It's one
thing to say, like we won't allow you officially in until you're eighteen keen,
I mean already. I think it's problematic, but I think all kinds
of soldiers are problematic. But to be clear, with all respect to those
who are in the armed forces, I'm talking about the recruitment that happens to
them. But when you're talking about call of duty, when you're talking about
the last Starfighter, part of the idea here is that people are playing starting
at twelve, thirteen or even much younger, you know, and so like,
yes, maybe someone waits till their eighteenth birthday or their high school graduation
to sign up for the military, or if they've been playing Call of Duty,
which is specifically like made in an attempt to help people want to be
in the military, Like how much is the like the I don't want to
say brainwashing feels like too strong a term, but definitely a like part of
the concern with child soldiers, I think is that kids can be more easily
influenced, not always, but certainly a lot of the time. And so
like, I think it's bad to like propaganda's fourteen year olds and then put
a gun in their hand. But I think part of what you've got me
thinking of is propaganda them starting at fourteen or twelve or ten, but they're
not putting the gun in their hands till their eighteen. Actually is that much
better? Yeah? And I think like the fiction that we are talking about
starts to starts to hint at a direction we are going with technology and military
where it can become even more dangerous because you talk about a gun in your
hand, But now we are fighting war wars with drones, right, And
who's to say that a fifteen year old isn't piloting a drone? I mean,
like international law says that you shouldn't do that, But again, like,
I'm not a lawyer on the Geneva Conventions, so I don't know if
it would actually prohibit that because it you know, is that quote unquote active
combat right to pilot a drone? I think it is. But like obviously,
like we can imagine lawyers who would argue that it isn't right. Well,
especially because I think, like for me, part of the reason against
child soldiers. I'm primarily thinking of like mental and like you know, psychological
development and like is you know, I think there is an age young enough
where you're just not really fully understanding of the consequences of your actions in a
way that I think you really have to be if you are possibly killing other
human beings. And I will talking about how an enders game like that not
lack of knowledge is actually part of the point sometimes with younger soldiers. But
also there's a physical development aspect. You know, some fifteen year olds are
the size they're going to be as adults and could probably kick the ass of
a lot of adults. Most aren't. Though most fifteen year olds probably can't
carry the forty time backpack the way a twenty two year old could. And
so you're right, So there's kind of just a physical like you're not big
enough to be a soldier yet, kid, Go grow up some more and
then come back. But the flip side of that is that, yeah,
you're right. If warfare is sitting in a building playing with a computer and
as a result, you know, dozens or hundreds of people are dying,
Yeah, you don't need you don't need those physical skills. So it becomes
a lot easier to have people who aren't as physically mature but have the dexterity
or whatever it is that you need, or just the mental capacity. And
so with that, let's actually transition into talking about Enders games specifical, because
they do. You want to talk about some of these specific genres, and
Enders game is definitely one of them. Do you want to give for those
I think most people know the basics of Ender story, but you want to
give like a quick summary for anyone who doesn't. Yeah, I mean the
main character Ender is is he like genetically modified. His parents are authorized by
like this is like very scary stuff. His parents are authorized by the government
to have a third child because their genes are like so superior. But the
first two children didn't turn out quite right. One was too violent, one
was too compassionate, and then like the third one, Ender is just right,
like the goldilocks of the gene pool. You know that, because you
can determine these things. And he is he is a genius. He's like
recruited in the army at like eight or something like very young, like much
younger than pretty much anything else like in any of these fictions we're talking about,
and goes to a battle school in space in orbit with the zero gravity
combat and excels at these games you know Enders game. He excels at these
games where he's a commander of other child soldiers, like entire armies who basically
fight like zero gravity laser tag, right, and he is so good at
all this. The human the human military, it's like the world military at
this point, because they are fighting against a race of bugs, an alien
force of bugs who invaded Earth that at one point, and they are preparing
for what they say is the next invasion, but in fact Earth is counter
invading. They've sent a fleet off already and it reaches the bug space.
An Ender and his fellow kids actually take command of this fleet. Unknowingly,
they are being they are told that they are just playing more games to help
their training, but they are actually in command of a real fleet that is
destroying bug planets and ultimately reaches the bug home planet and Ender again thinks he's
only playing a game, sees the insurmountable Aussie's up against and chooses to use
a weapon. What do they call it, doctor device? I think,
yeah, it's it's it's a maguff and it's a it's a space nuke that
can destroy an entire planet, and he chooses to use it in the game
because in his mind, he's just up with it. He's like, they
keep making the game harder and harder and impossible to win. F it,
like, I'm just going to drop this nuke and like get out of the
system. He thinks he's going to wash out because of this, because he
quote unquote broke the rules right, so to speak. And then everyone is
overjoyed because like he has destroyed the bugs, and he's like, what do
you mean? And they finally tell him what's been going on, and it
just breaks him because he has committed Zeno side is the phrase that is used
in this novel, and it's I think it's I liked it when I was
a kid. I mean I read this in high school and it has a
couple of sequels that are I think, okay, pretty good but when you
think about it in this context, like it's it's terribly frightening. Yeah,
yeah, I think I agree with you. And it's interesting how the book
gets played because I think for a lot of kids, especially if you're kind
of like the nerdy kid who's getting peased and maybe beaten up by bullets at
your school and things like this, Like for our younger viewers, it's maybe
harder to remember, but there was a time when, like the geeks weren't
the cool kids. You know, anyone's alden after getting shoved into a locker
or something like that, knows what I'm talking about. And so for me,
like I think, for I actually read it as an adult, but
I still had a lot of that nostalgia. But I think, certainly for
a lot of people who read this as kids, seeing a kid who was
successful because he was smarter than everyone else was really really appealing, and the
book, I think, I think the point that the author orson Scott Card
was trying to make. And to be clear, he's someone who I have
a lot of disagreements with. He's fairly conservative, a lot of things in
later books, a lot of his homophobia and like Christianity in the conservative problematic
way kind of comes out a lot more. But I think he was on
to an interesting point here. Well, the point I think he's trying to
make is that this is horrific and terrible, but that it worked because that
warfare is so awful, that there's something in the human spirit that will like
pull away from having to do the thing you need to do in the face
of an existential threat, and that kids who to some extent haven't learned that
yet or just don't know that this is serious yet, won't do that.
And I think the book is meant to keep it as an open question of
was this necessary to do? And to some extent, I think the book
is somewhat arguing it wasn't, especially because part of what we'll later learn is
that, you know, this being an insectoid race, they think very differently
about individual life, and that a lot of it, like we think of
them as monstrous and genocidal, it's not. It's that they see things very
differently, and that there been more piece attempts, munication attempts, maybe peace
would have happened. But I think the book is written in such a way
that you could come across thinking like, yeah, children should be in charge
of everything. Children are smarter, children are better. And there's some ways
in which I really agree with that, in some ways in which I think
you're kind of saying that in an existential threat, anything and everything is not
good, but okay, And I think it's why I really like the book
so much. And I don't. I think I come to different conclusions than
the author, but I think it really does. At least, this book
tries to say this is going to be incredibly traumatic for kids, even if
they don't realize it, in a way that I think a lot of the
other works we're going to talk about, like Last Starfighter, it's kind of
like, oh, it's fun, and it's like, oh, this poor
kid that he's thrown into a war they had no idea he was going to
do when he's seventeen. But there's never any discussion of like, oh,
this should like this was bad to do to him because he's so young,
you know. Yeah, I think Card the author try it like I don't
know, because like he wrote it in the seventies and eighties, we don't
know what he was thinking. But it seems like he tries to walk back
some of what he does in this first book. With the sequels in terms
of especially like the alien race, the buggers and the miscommunication, I guess
it's kind of there at the end, but it's not really addressed as well
as some of the sequels do. And there are like very interesting philosophical points
about alien contact, you know, miscommunication, first contact, and like also
like how we view humanity and like alien like literal alien races in terms of
how they look, because I think the idea of a bug and insectoid alien
race being benign is alien to a lot of the fiction that we that we
consume, Like usually they are monstrous and like they're here to eat us and
all that, and like I think art does play into that, but then
it's like, well, but let's imagine that they are not that m h.
In terms of ender Gosh, like he does he's broken, Like in
the first book, he's broken. He goes into a deep, deep depression
after this, as he should, like I don't say like that he deserves
it, but as a character should when they find out that they have committed
zenocide. Yeah, And I think the adults who run the Battle school like
get away with it too much. I don't know that there's any consequences at
all. Maybe it's like mentioned, but I think there's like war crimes trials,
but most of them are like they're all kicked out of the military,
like they get to retire, They get to retire comfortably, like is the
end result. And to be clear, the things they're doing hav in real
life consequences go much earlier before the war started, I think. And there
actually goes to the school when he's like five or six, because part of
the point is that he's a super genius from a very young age. Yeah,
and there's a scene early in the book forgive me for spoilers, but
this is like thirty years old. What are you even the movie is like
ten years old where he's part of what they're training him to do is again
to be willing, to be ruthless, to be willing to do what you
have to do. And so at a very young age, he's being bullied
quite cruelly, and the administration refuses to step in and protect him because they
want to see what he will do. And what he does is wind up
killing one of the kids and bullied, like he is confronted like three or
four on one in the showers with no supervision, no protect and they just
like they're going to wail on him, and he counter whales on them and
kills the head bully, right, and the the administrators wind up walking this
line where on the one hand, they don't want ender to know that that
kid died, so they lie to him and they tell him he decided to
leave the school, but he's okay, don't worry about it. But also
they're like, this is good because what happened. We put him in a
combat situation where the only way he could survive, as he understood it,
was to use extreme measures, and then he did. And like, to
me, that's almost like that's the point where I really think you're supposed to
be like, these guys are horrible and terrible, and and that's why in
some ways I hate that it works, because I fully agree mm hm,
the adults are horrible, and I think that this should be the point of
a discussion, like this is a you got to have limits on like how
young like you you recruit or even you know, use child soldiers, if
at all, but the adults in the room have to be responsible. Yeah,
And you said, like even twenty five year olds might not be emotionally
developed to be soldiers. Like, so even the adults, like the generals
or whoever is responsible for soldiers have to be very very responsible in terms of
you know, how people are used their mental and emotional states, and like
this is an ongoing problem, right, like PTSD is a thing, and
oftentimes, like veterans who come back from wars are not properly taken care of.
Like I think that is also a discussion that has to happen, like
not just how young do your group, but no matter the age, like,
take care of the people you are putting into horrible situations. Yeah,
Like I know one of the problems they've dealt with the most in child soldier
situations is that even when they are captured, slash, rescued and like taken
out of that situation, that often these kids are they have learned from an
incredibly young age to be violent as a way to deal with problems, and
it creates a lot of like social problems and things like that they can last
into adulthood. And I think where and that's again where you get in the
situation of like what we were talking about in the last episode about blame,
Like obviously, like a twenty five year old who is you know, harming
others is a problem, but if that twenty five year old was raised to
be a child soldier at twelve, I want that to be taken into account
when we're trying to figure out how to deal with this person, you know.
I think one of the things that Ender also the ener game Bok also
raises is this question of how much can you bend the rules or break the
rules when facing an existential threat. And that's actually something that's brought up in
the Clone Wars to some extent, And so I want to switch to talking
about the question of are the Patawan's child soldiers and how does that affect how
we see the Jedi. I want to see a quick moment to say though,
that if you enjoy conversations like this, if you want more people to
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And meanwhile, Zen Madman has been typing like mad so I want to read
a couple of things from him and then get back to this question. First,
he writes, there are a bunch of streamers, including friends of the
show, Will Friedman, Will Freeland aka Silver Dreamer, who build Legos and
Gundam and other models on stream and it's a lot of fun to watch.
I'll definitely a link to his podcast in the show notes. Check that out,
and Paul says he paused and is catching up on two time speeds,
so I'm sure our voices sound fun. He then writes, I one percent
agree with the point that eighteen is arbitrary, and sure I can't think of
a bit arbitrary age, and also say the Avatar. Yeah, we're definitely
gona get into Avatar the Last Airbender in a second or in a few minutes.
But let me now put this question to you. Are Padawan's child soldiers?
And are the Jedi kind of not great for taking these children? Sometimes
Padawans are almost adult age, are actually adult age, but still Padawans.
But like you know, when a lot of times they're taking twelve and thirteen
year olds into battle with them, are Padawan's child soldiers absolutely, and not
only that their child military leaders. Yeah, it seems like it's universal that
the the Jedi Masters and Knights are the rank of general, and then the
Padawans are commanders, meaning that they still they have authority over pretty much every
Clone soldiers, right, And so this is similar to Enders game where Ender
and his I think it's gesh is the word they use is they are all
basically admirals slash captains, starships and fleets, and I don't know, like
compared to Gundam, this is like very bad. Like in Gundam, the
kids just pilot like one bobbile suit. They're very good at it. So
they are often like leading in combat, but it's always like one on one
they're they're generally not commanding other troops. So the idea of patawans not just
fighting as kids, but leading troops and ordering troops to their death, Like
the Ahsoka show actually calls this out where in the world between Worlds episodes,
Ahsoka talks with Ghost Anakin and it's like a flashback to the first Battle and
the Clone Wars that they were in together, and she's like, how do
I order people to their deaths? Yeah? And Anakin just kind of shruggs,
like, you gotta do what you gotta do in war, yeah,
And it's it's terrible, Like I don't know what else to say about it,
that it's terrible. And I think when we say kids have like this
can be incredibly traumatic for anybody, but especially for people younger. It's easy
to take a kind of ageis idea of oh, kids just aren't emotionally mature
enough to handle these things, and I think it can often be the opposite.
It's that kids aren't so jaded yet that they're okay with these things.
Like I think you can look at it either way, but either way,
I think yet Ahsoka is obviously troubled by that. But also look at Barrisofi,
the Jedi who winds up turning on the Jedi in part because she thinks
the Jedi aren't living up to the rules that they're supposed to and she thinks
the Jedi are so broken. She starts fighting as a very young child,
at like twelve or thirteen. And I think part of it is that a
lot of the adults are just like, look, war as Hell and the
and the world is tough and that's how it is. And she kind of
hasn't become that screwed up and cynical yet, and so for her the problems
are that much more inherent and problematic, and that's part of why she turns.
And we can argue about her characters specifically, but I think she's I
think she is a great example of someone who got really screwed up because she
was thrown into war at a very young age. Yeah. And as we're
seeing more of the fallout, like the more Star Wars we get of this
era, we are seeing how many I think Padawans who fought during Clone Wars
were turned to the dark Side, like in the Inclusatorious program, right,
because it was like and you could argue that this is a subset of Palpatine's
plan to break the Jedi order was to find a bunch of dark Side recruits,
people who would be broken by this war and you could just like pick
up the pieces and find the best ones to utilize for his purposes. Yeah.
And I mentioned the existential threat part because this isn't spelled out very much
in the show, but very much in the books, including the now Disney
and in books that the Clone Wars is that is such a desperate situation for
both the Republic and the Jedi, like after the Battle of Geonosis in I
think it's one of the books about Obi Wan and Anakin. I think it's
Brotherhood, but I could be wrong. But basically, one of the Jedi
masters gives a speech about how look, first of all, like all Padawans
who are like seventeen eighteen, like your Jedi Knights, congratulations, and we're
gonna give you new Padawans as well, and all of you, you're gonna
have to go out and fight. And we don't like this, but we
have to because you are so young, and because this war is so desperate,
and that has really traumatic effects actually, and realizing it's not in that
book, it's I think in Rise of the Red Blade. And part of
the idea is that one of the reasons why some of the people who were
Padawans fall through the dark Side and become inquisitors is because they were thrown into
wards such a young age, and it really broke their brains in very understandable
ways. Yeah, I like I personally, my feelings on war are such
that it would be great if we didn't have them at all. Yeah,
And I understand that that's not the world we live in, and that certain
things have to be done in order to do those things. In my opinion,
you have to break a certain amount of morality within everyone, right,
Like I think it hopefully it's like a very natural impulse in it's not even
I don't know, I'm gonna say it like this, that it's a natural
impulse to not murder other humans, or at least like that's how society has
taught us at this point. And then like you have to take a certain
subset of people and say no, no, no, we actually want you
to murder other humans for our purposes. And I do think, like what
you're saying with adults, there's a certain typeline of indoctrination i'll call it,
which is what we're talking about here with with like the recruitment and now with
like training in video games, like you are indoctrinating a certain subset of people
to be like, yes, not only is it okay to kill people,
we want we want you, you know, to want to kill people.
Right, that's kind of you know what we're doing. Right. And then
with kids, I understanding on that that has a very long history. I
mean, I'm sure there are examples of that going back millennia, but just
as an example in our own history, you know, in world War two
and in World War One, but especially in World War Two, in order
to help Americans get over that like you can't kill a human being, there's
an awful lot of propaganda that tried to dehumanize, particularly the Japanese and portray
them as like, you know, holking asiatic monsters in these horrifically racist ways,
and the specific goal of that was to be like, no, no,
no, they're not human beings like you. You can kill them,
it's okay. And similar things were being done on all sides in World War
One between like the Germans and the French, and a particularly game at the
Russians because they weren't really Europeans and things like that. And yeah, so
I think, and as you talked about, enders game plays on the same
thing of when we see like an eight foot tall cockroach, there's a there's
a part of the you know, for most people that's probably like, it's
horrifying, that's terrible, And that's part of what allows us to kill animals
so freely because they don't they don't look like us, since we don't see
them as life formed in the same way. Yeah, so, like with
child child soldiers, like I think, where am I trying to go sorry,
I lost my trail thought, no, that's my fall friend rupting,
I apologize. I think what I wanted to say was that with children,
you have to break the morality quicker, yeah, to get them to that
point. And I don't know, like that or trick them or trick them
into thinking that it's not real, like that happens with enders game. Paul
also points out in terms of the Star Wars that the Clones are also child
soldiers. And I think this is a really interesting thing, particularly in how
Disney now has handled this, because in the EU and the Legends canon,
and I think in some of the Clone Wars TV show this is absolutely true.
And in the Republic Commando Legends books, which I talked about a lot,
there's a Jedi spends a lot of time with the Clones and touches the
mind of one of them and says, that's really confusing because in many ways
it is the mind of an adults, but in many ways it's the kind
of a child. Yeah. And she has like at one point, like
the two of them start falling in love, and she has real like issues
like can this child consent to this? And and she comes to understand that
in those regards he's more of an adult. But it's really left kind of
open of like are they child soldiers? The Disney canon has never mentioned that
idea once, and I think has kind of shifted more to the idea of
part of the clone maturation process is that they are adults, both physically and
mentally and psychologically. And you can argue, like, is that actually possible
to do over three years time instead of air ten years time? And that
kids in an all questions of psychology and stuff, But Disney seems to be
really I think Disney seems to have recognized, Oh, that's a that's a
bad topic, Like, don't get it to like, because the point like
what is an adult? Right? Like we've talked about physical bodies, and
the cloning process is able to somehow subvert the natural aging process and age up
a body to maturity, right, like physical maturity in terms of strength and
all that. What is what is an adult in terms of mind? Right?
Isn't it just memories? Like because we have eighteen plus years of memories
and lived experiences like that is what makes us adults and informs our morality and
ability to interact with the world, right, can you implant those memories in
a clone and if you don't have them, like, because I presumably like
they're able to do like matrix style training of like I know kung fu,
like I know how to fires, like they just quote unquote program that,
yeah, brains, but can you program morality? I don't know, yeah,
And I think they're right to not get into into the weeds of that
because Star Wars, as much as we say it's sci fi, like,
it's not hard sci fi like, these are not the enemies that we're Star
Wars dealing with. So I'm fine with done just like ignoring that to some
degree. The last thing I want to bring up, and I think this
is one of the best arguments I've heard for the idea that Patawan's really should
be thought of as child soldiers and that it's not just during this existential threat
of the Clone Wars, which I don't think is an extenttional threat necessarily because
the separates just want to leave, like and you've heard me rant about that
in other ways long beforehand, and obviously it becomes it with Order sixty six
and all that, but that's a different story. And this is a spoiler
for the most recent episode of The Acolyte, So if you were not up
to date with that, please skip ahead. I'm going to clap and make
a big deal when we come back from it. And I'm actually gonna put
exact time notes in the show notes of when we stopped talking about this that
no one gets spoiled. So spoilers for the Acolyte in three and actually even
in the in the chat, I will say we are now done with that.
You can listen again. But spoilers to the Acolyte in three two one.
In the most recent step you've seen the most resent episode, right,
Ricky, Yeah, okay, I told you I didn't like it. Uh.
In the most recent episode, the one of the padawan who's been along
with the group, Jeckie, is killed by the person we realize is a
Dark Side Force user, Darth Biceps, as he's often heard by many on
the thirst year side of these discussions, fantastic acting, beautiful, human being,
incredible. But and when that happens, Soul says to Kimer, uh,
Kaimer, that character, you know, how could you kill her?
And and Kimer responds, You're the one who brought her here? And like
that line to me, just knowing we were gonna record this hit me so
hard because kind of what he's saying is like, you're blaming me for killing
the child who you brought into a combat situation. And I mean and like
when it's not like he just murder out of the blue, She's actively trying
to kill him, because granted he's been trying to kill others like they are
in a fight to the death, and he kills her as part of a
fight to the death. And you can see how much that line hits soul
of because what he's saying is like, you put this child into this life
or death situation, and that that to me hit me really hard as a
like, yeah, the clone wars is when it gets really bad, but
even hundreds of years beforehand, the Padawans were child soldiers and that's a problem.
Well, yeah, like in this situation, I would say more like
a child cop right, Like this is this is an investigation and they're looking
into a murder. They're trying to find a murderer. So it isn't war,
but it is it is absolutely like still a definite life threatening, endangering
its situation. Yeah, cop is I think actually at one point I had
a theory about, like if the Clone wars about how the Jedi becomes soldier,
is the Higher Republic is about how the Jedi become cops, which is
the first step towards that. Yea, and yeah, yeah, because they're
investigating. They're not thinking it's a war necessarily, but they know that,
like they're investigating a killer and so the killer might attack them and you know,
so yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. Okay,
we are now done talking about the Acolyte. I'm gonna put a note
in chat. So where are we, Like, do we want to address
any other fiction? I would say, let's talk about Avatar, because Avatar
the Last Airbenders, I see it is a different kind of situation, but
is related because on the one hand, like one thing I think I think
is an important distinction that we haven't talked about is the difference between adults who
are drafting child soldiers into their wars versus kids who want to run away and
join the war even though adults are trying to stop them. And like Full
Metal Alchemist, I think is a very interesting example that I really love where
it's kind of in the middle where like, there are some people who are
like, your kids, you really shouldn't be in this fight. But then
once they're in the fight, they're like, well, you can fight,
and we need you. And I don't want to rewatch that before I get
into that too much, but I do think that show at least deals with
the real trauma of it. Avatar, I think actually shows two different examples
of this, because you have the Avatar's friends and oh my god, why
am I blanking on their names all of a sudden, not Suki Soka and
begins with the k help me out, Gaitara, thank you, Yosaka and
Katara and their father and a lot of the others around them are constantly saying
like, your kids, don't be in this fight, go back, go
back home. And for the most part, they're not soldiers, they're not
being asked to be on the front lines of the actual like battles, but
they're surely getting into fights a lot, and so those kids are like kids
who the adults don't want to fight. But because Aang is the Avatar,
everyone's like, well, it doesn't matter what age you are, because actually
you're this reincarnation of this ancient, ancient being. So you have to go
fight awards for us. And so I think they do a very interesting like
back and forth there of having both kids who want to go to war and
the adults are saying no, But for the Avatar, they're not only okay
with it, they're telling him he has to do this, when at first
he kind of just wants to be a kid. He wants to just go
off and like do sledding games with the penguins and other things that look really
fun. But everyone around him is like, no, you're the Avatar,
you have to fight. Yeah. I mean a lot of these fictions present
the protagonist as a chosen one, right, like the avatar is literally the
only one who has all the four elemental powers in this universe, and some
of these other ones, like the Last star Fighter, the protagonist scores the
highest on the video game, like he achieves the high score and that's what
leads to him being recruited, so he's like exceptional at this craft. And
then in like a lot of the gun dams like that, the child literally
sometimes like falls into the mobile suits and starts fighting and it's like, oh,
like you you are better at this than any of the adults. And
they coin a term new type for like this special maybe psychic ability that some
of these kids have. So yeah, like I don't I don't know what
the deal deal do with that, because Katara and Sokka are just kids,
right, And that's to me, that's separate from the Ang the avatar,
who is literally the only one, And I don't know, like how you
treat that, Like he's also a kid, but he has magical superpowers,
so yeah in this universe, yes, I guess he has to do this
because he's he's you know, element superpower guy. Yeah, yeah, like
there and they do. And in fairness, there are some adults who are
saying, like, you have the avatar power from a young age, but
you shouldn't actually be the avatar until you become an adult. Oh yeah,
but that we're in this like weird situation where you have to but like,
to me, it feels like this would like in some ways, yeah,
I to me for me, in some ways, the child soldier recruitment isn't
necessarily saying Aang, you have to do this, although I think is problematic,
to be sure, but it's also whatever system was created that puts this
power into young kids because I find it hard to believe that every time an
avatar dies, and so now everyone knows that some like ten year old is
now the Avatar, all the bad people in the world are just gonna say,
you know what, We're gonna wait eight years to try and conquer the
world because it's not fair to have a child avatar have to fight us,
So we're gonna wait. Like I would imagine lots of times people would be
like, oh cool, the Avatar is only eleven, Like doors are open,
let's go, let's do all the bad stuff. Yeah. The beginning
of the war, the Fire Nation does their sneak attack on the Air Temple
the Air Nomads to try to eliminate the Avatar for ten to twenty years or
you know however long it takes, right, Like that's their plan, is
a sneak attack to get rid of the Avatar so that they can execute their
war, Yeah, without interference. Paul also says Katana and Soccer are also
kids who lost a lot to the war and decided on their own to get
involved, which feel fundamentally different from being recruited as a child soldier. Recruited
as a soldier, which, yeah, I was saying a little bit about
that at the beginning, but I think that he's saying it even better.
You know that those two are in such a different place, and like,
I don't love that they want to fight, but I also feel like,
you know, again, that happens in their own world all the time,
you know, like in places where people are oppressed, in Northern Ireland,
in Palestine, in all over the world. I imagine in the Ukraine,
like they're sixteen year olds who are running off to forward twelve. You know,
people a much younger who are running off to fight because they see their
own families being killed, their own home being destroyed. And I hope that
the adults can often be like, this isn't a great idea, but also
I do think it's like a fundamentally different but sometimes maybe they in the shows,
I think they often become great soldiers. And again maybe like I don't
want to say, like again, that's something magical happens in the day you
turn nineteen and now it's okay for you to go kill people, but not
when you're seventeen and three hundred and sixty days old. Like it's a big
gray mass, and like you like coming up with rules for when war and
soldiers are okay feels ridiculous because I think none of it's ever okay. But
yeah, I think that's kind of the point, is that the when you're
running off to join your own and you haven't been propagandized in the same way,
that that feels very different. But these rules exist now, like this
is international law and you have to, like if you've signed up for this,
which you know most of the nations have, you have to follow international
law. Like that's like that's how laws work, right, And we talk
about go ahead, go ahead, like I want to hear. I feel
like for me, I like I do want there to be ruled. I
don't want there be any war at all. I think there being rules of
war is a really double edged sword because on the one hand, yeah,
like if you have to have war, make it less brutal as possible,
like you killing soldiers better than killing civilians, you know, et cetera,
et cetera. But also I feel like there's a danger and I think we
very much saw this in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century in this country,
where there's this idea of that because there are so many rules to war
and the war therefore is almost this gentlemanly act that it's okay. And I
think in a situation where all sides are following the rules, then I think
I agree with you. But a lot of the situations I just mentioned you
have oppressors that are breaking the Geneva Conventions left, right and center. You
know, I don't think anyone is going to look at what Russia is doing
in Ukraine and say, like, oh, yeah, there's no war crimes
being committed, and like, you know, I certainly have my opinions about
how many war crimes being committed in Palestine by the IOF these really offensive force
and others of this agree and I understand that. But you know, you
can look at Northern Ireland, you can look at India, Pakistan, you
can look at like all these different situations around the world where if I'm sixteen
years old and soldiers are coming to my town and killing my family and more
of my friends and my family, and they are coming to destroy my home
and my friends, if I pick up a gun to fight these people who
are attacking us at fourteen, fifteen sixteen, I don't think that's great for
me. But I'm not going to blame the adult soldier who's like, hey,
kid, here's some more AMMO. Please, you know, come join
me right here. I'm going to blame the people who attacked me, who
put me into a situation where I had to become a soldier. Does that
make sense? Like I don't think they should have to be, but I
think, like in a situation where you're getting close to being existentially wiped out
or overrun, I don't want them to ever try and get children to be
soldiers. But if people on the front lines in Ukraine are not like checking
IDs when youngish looking people show up and say I'm eighteen, that's low on
my list of the ethical problem I see happening in Ukraine. If that matters,
If that makes sense, I understand what you're saying, and I think
there are different lines here, like in a in an active combat situation like
you're talking about, like soldiers are coming through my streets and shooting people like
and I'm a kid, and I pick up one of these guns and shoot
back, Like to my understanding, like that is not a war crime,
Like that's just active combat like stuff happens, right, I think what the
Geneva conventions are saying is like if that kid comes to like their nation's army
camp with their gun, yeah, like you have to take reasonable I think
it uses language like reasonable measures to not have them continue in active combat.
And as to your point of like checking ID and stuff like, yeah,
like there's a long history of people faking their age to join the military,
and it happens, And I think all all it's saying is like you have
to be reasonable about it, Like you have to try to take measures to
have kids avoid being in these situations, right, And I don't know that
we can do better than that, because war is a mass, complex confusion,
right Yeah, yeah, No, I think that's fair, And I
guess I guess what I'm saying is like, do I think it's a bad
thing for kids to ever be picking up guns and fighting? Yes, But
like if the Russian invading army has sixteen year olds in it and the Ukrainian
army has sixteen year olds in it, technically I think both are bad and
both are probably violations of the Geneva Convention. But I'm much more concerned about
the Russians and if the Ukrainian is like they never get around prosecuting whatever Ukrainian
lieutenant was like, I can't believe we're doing this, but we need every
gun right now. So yeah, I'm not gonna send you home. Like
I'm okay with that. That's kind of what I'm saying. It's kind of
like, I I hate that we ever have these needs for violence, but
I think that when you are the group that's being attacked, when you are
the group that's being oppressed, I don't want you actively seeking out kids.
But I'm I'm more sympathetic to war as hell, and we had to do
this. So here here's here's where I see. What you're saying is that
is the invader Russia has built up their army and recruited and planned and trained
soldiers, right and it's defenders. You are often like not at the luxury
of doing that. You're you're just kind of like using the best of what
you got. Yeah, But what I will say is like, so in
my research, like the Geneva Conventions, there's a newer Ish provision called the
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Involvement of
Children in Armed Conflict. Okay, that's a mouthful. It's shortened to oh,
pack the optional protocol it's often called. And this was like trying to
draw a harder line of you know, the arbitrary line of eighteen years and
eighteen years old and trying to say, like you, you cannot even recruit
people until they are eighteen. You think that they wanted to draw this part
line of eighteen years, like you can't even recruit people younger than eighteen,
and I think I think that's reasonable, and which I would just say,
I think should make the call of duty games being specifically dined as like future
recruitment CRUs or crimes but go on or at least a violation. I like
war crimes as a probably a parder line. But we're talking like difference between
like felonies and misdemeanors. Again, we're not lawyers here, but what I
want to point out is that I'm looking at the Wikipedia page for the OH
back in the final negotiations, only five states still advocated against the straight eighteen
principle Egypt, Kuwait, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and most Trenchantly.
And this is the words they use the United States of America. And to
me, like you when you open this discussion, like you talked about Africa,
right, And I think that like when you mentioned child soldiers to people,
that is an image they get of like a kid, a black kid
in Africa holding an AK forty seven, And that's just media propaganda. So
to speak like that is a it happens, Like I'm not saying it doesn't
happen because someone took that picture, right, why was that kid holding a
gun? But when it comes down to the international law and the rules,
like the US is like no, no, no, we want to keep
recruiting, like we want to have these video game players like be able to
join the army, and there are like now, there are rules, and
I think it has to do with like with parental consent, et cetera.
But but it's it's a mess. It's a huge mess, and I think
we have to get over this idea. Frankly, like I think it's the
racist idea that has been embedded in our news cycles and in our propaganda that
this is like a quote unquote African problem. Yeah. No, I fully
agree with that, And I hope I said something about that earlier. I
think I did, but if I'd not, part of why frondering up the
African situation is like I think that's what's in most people heads, but like,
yeah, I think it happens in all its even and that's what I
also said, Like when you talk about even like gangs, it's not just
black kids by any means, or Latino kids or other kids of color.
I would argue that when like teenagers who have read lots of you know,
right wing propaganda and go and shoot up schools or churches or things like that
and leave racist messages, those are child soldiers who've been recruited, like I
would there, and those are almost all white kids, like I would put
them in the child soldier category absolutely, So yeah, I think that's really
important, is that, like the African situation has gets the most attention,
and I think in some cases like it's the most viscerally obvious, but it
is actually happening in all sorts of parts of the world and has happened all
sorts of parts of the world. Like I love the Ken Burns documentary,
but it often talks about how, you know, like the heroism of these
kids who ran off and said they were eighteen and no one bothered to check,
and there's a sort of like and because he has in a lot of
like movies about like World War two or Civil War, there's kind of a
nudge and a wink of like, well, you shouldn't be here, but
you're so awesomely patriotic and wonderful that you want to sign up at fourteen that
like we're still gonna call you a hero, you know, So, yeah,
the ulta mentions. According to Child Soldiers International, the UK deployed twenty
two armed forces personnel aged under eighteen to Iraq in Afghanistan between two thousand and
three and twenty ten. And that's that's for armed forces personnel under eighteen.
So we're not even talking about just just the recruiting, like they sent them
into combat zones under the age of eighteen, and again like did these kids
possibly lie about their age? Yes, but again we're not talking about This
is not the confusion of war like in an active combat like oh we don't
want to you know, ID check this kid in the middle of a battle.
This is like you sent them from your nation to another nation, like
you should have done your due diligence. Yeah, and that's I think,
like, you know, there's no battles happening on the literal streets of the
United Kingdom or the United States of America. There have been attacks, but
nothing I think that raises the kind of existential threat that I'm talking about in
advice like Ukraine. And yeah, so I think that I'm not surprised because
a given the timing, I think it was probably under Trump that the US
was so trenchant about it. But I'm guessing that Biden and whoever came before
him, however comes after him, would be just a strenchent because God bless
the USA. But yeah, you're talking about the Opak No, because Opak
was like, it's actually I think eighteen years old at least now, so
that the last couple of years, Okay, that makes sense. I guess
there is so much more recent to Geneva. So anyway, we're getting pretty
deep in illegal ease here, and as you said, you know, we're
up without lawyers. But I think this is good discussions and fans would love
to You've got to say, as long as you can find all the ways
to contact us on the apical panea dot com, please do that we hear
any last comments you want to make. We didn't even we didn't even get
to Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is I'm in the middle of watching right now.
I had to stop watching because it was so emotionally devastating to me one
of the episodes, because this one, not only are they kids they're piloting
meccas, but the the EVAs, the meccas they use in this universe,
like, are somehow psychically connected to the kids and respond emotionally to them,
sometimes like subconsciously. So it is much more than just like kids piloting machines,
like they respond to their emotions. And part of the reason this show
is devastating is because the person who is in charge of this program is the
protagon father, like literal father, and you know, we talk about like
these how adults need to responsible, and this is just like I understand why
this is so beloved because the questions that brings up and the psychic damage it
does to the audience and obviously to the characters is quite severe. It is
a really good anime. I'm looking forward to finishing it eventually, but I
needed a break because it was just one episode that broke the main character and
broke me. So I look forward to finishing it. But oh my gosh,
yeah, I definitely want to watch it maybe, and I've gotten a
couple of like small season kicks of things, but I think it's definitely on
our list to watch, so we will definitely do an episode about it at
some point soon. Well, did you. Thank you so much for bringing
on this topic. Thank you Jared for helping to push us towards as well.
It's one we're gonna have a lot more to say about. We want
so much feedback from uh the uh, We want so much more feedback from
our listeners and stuff like that. But we're gonna pause from now. We're
gonna have some great bonus content about an idea about Star Wars that I've had.
But for everybody else, thank you as much for tuning in. We
have spoken to