Child Soldiers

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and Leah on Paulus Masa. No, that's dumb, is it planning? 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 hear them, please hit like, Please hit subscribe, Please share this with other people, get other people into the conversation. We love feedback. We're getting live feedback from Zen mad Man, and we've had it from other people

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Ethics as well. And it's also just a great way support the podcast. 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