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All right, hello and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Uh, Ricky and myself are gonna be discussing the topic of 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're 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 up the question of child soldiers and printed 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 a 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 our reminder to our listeners, like, you know, give us the feedback, all the information's on the show notes. Just go to theethicalpanda.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 having 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 and me wants to portray it, but the way kids can get wrapped up. And gang culture at a young age and gang fighting and things like that. So just a reminder, this is we're talking about it in science fiction, in fantasy. But obviously what 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 star fighter or be a general or be a Jedi. So, Ricky, what kind of, what was your initial thought process in when we first got this question and wanting 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 Mecha anime features a main character highlighting one of the giant robots who is a child, like a teenager, often a young teenager to start. So I had already broke the subject and I said, well, like, and also like my Netflix algorithm is recommending Ender's Game, which is a, you know, a Western example of this. And then I started going through stuff and was like, wait a minute, like, this is just a thing in like everything we watch. You had around the same time mentioned you'd rewatched War Games. And that, like War Games and Ender's Game are both like right around the same time, I believe, like mid-80s, 1980s. And then there's another movie from that era, The Last Starfighter, which also fits that mold. And then... Make it classic, by the way, if you haven't seen it, I'm going to 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 in the '70s, but was very prominent in the '80s as well. So I was thinking about this and it's like, why did we suddenly get this in the '80s? 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 2C, 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 Mecha is essentially a video game, to some extent. Yeah. And the last star fighter, 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 Skynet. 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 a desire to sell toys to kids. Sure. Because like you said, not only was it about the video game of the Mecha, but actually selling the robot to kids. And like, you know, we know like your shows like He-Man and She-Ra came directly out of corporate wanting to sell these toys. Do you have the same thing in Japan? Like other animates that were like the Japanese toy makers were clearly trying to like push so they could sell Gundam robot toys to kids. Of course. I mean, like Transformers is a Japanese, originally a Japanese product. Mm. Yeah. And that is probably the, I would guess the biggest toy seller in the 80s. It's possible towards the end, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shows up. But to me, like 80s 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 kids, the Gunpla, which is still like often, you know, kids buy them and build them. But 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 80% market share. And oh, that's really interesting. OK, like it is because it used to be like you would build, like when I was a kid, I had Gunpla, 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 oddly enough, I think Lego has mostly replaced that market. Like if you want to build a model Star Destroyer, you get the Lego Star Destroyer. Yeah. And that's like cleaner and safer, right? Because you're not dealing with the epoxy glue and like cut stuff. So there's no paint that kids are going to want to sniff and it's money. But you're not going to agree. Lego is cornering in on the market. So I guess I'd be curious to see whether those are considered the same by markets, by toy markets. Well, 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 or adults want to put together and build and paint, I think about miniatures for warfare, like Warhammer type stuff. Were there Gundam games or was it just about like creating this cool thing that put on your shelf or play with, you know, friends without like a specific set of rules attached? No, they 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 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. Um, no, Gundam is like mostly a display thing. That's cool. 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 then in both places and probably I'm sure in other places around the world as well, I feel like part of the 80s was you get a lot more programming aimed at children in part because 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. Um, 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 there, I can 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 subset of it though? What, why, like, I was doing an episode about it because I think we think that this might not always be the best thing. Um, 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, they could be a Gundam pilot. And I, I think there is a, there's a reasonable separation when you have something as fantastic and futuristic as Gundam because we're, we're kind of starting to get there with robot technology. But it's not really feasible, right? And the same with the last Starfighter, like it's a funny concept that an arcade console game could be used to recruit for, to be a Starfighter pilot, but we don't have Starfighters. But I, like, it is 100% 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 as actual recruiting at events and stuff. And that's, I don't know, like that's, 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 Gundam 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 1949, 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 18 years do not take a direct part in hostilities. So that's the international law that most nations have agreed to at this point. It's interesting because I think we're kind of looking at how there's a couple different elements to this question because when I think of child soldiers, what comes to mind for me first, I think 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 12 to 14, 15, and then in a world like Ender's game, it can go to like eight, even or 10. 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. And so he's probably on that list of like 17, 18, but part of what that got me thinking about, and this is, I don't know if Paul is listening, but I know topic Paul and I have talked about quite a lot, that idea of 18 or over, like I think they have to have a guideline. I think a guideline is good. That's probably about a good age. But it also implies this idea that like, you know, some magical switch happens. And if you're 17 years and 364 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, they're 25 year olds who are not ready to be soldiers and they're probably are 16 year olds who are like development is not I'm not saying 16 year old to be soldiers to be very, very clear. But I think part of what also 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 18, you know, ready, 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 and talk 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 12, 13 or even much younger, you know, and so like, yes, maybe someone waits till their 18th birthday or the 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 propagandize 14 year olds and then put a gun in their hand. But I think part of what you've got me thinking of is propagandizing them starting at 14 or 12 or 10, but then not putting the gun in their hands till they're 18 actually is not 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 15 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 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're possibly killing other human beings. And I was talking about 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 15 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 15 year olds probably can't carry the 40 hand backpack the way a 22 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 kit go grow up some more and then come back. But but the flip side of that is that yeah, you're right. If 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 that dexterity or whatever it is that you need or just the mental capacity. And so with that, let's talk your transition into talking about enders games specifically. Because they don't want to talk about some of these specific genres. And enders games is definitely one of them. Do you want to give for those? I think most people know the basics of enders 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 into the army at like eight or something like very 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 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 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. And 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 odds he's up against and chooses to use a weapon. What do they call it? Dr. device, I think? Yeah, it's it's it's a MacGuffin. 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 fed up with it. He's like, they keep making the game harder and harder and impossible to win. Effort, 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 is committed. Xeno 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 peed and making beaten up by bullies at your school and things like this, like for a younger viewers, this may be harder to remember. But there was a time when like the geeks weren't the cool kids. Anyone was old enough to get shoved into a locker or something like that knows what I'm talking about. And so for me, like, I think 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 the point that the author, Orson Scott Karg was trying to make, and to be clear, he's someone who I have a lot of disagreements with. He's fairly conservative on 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 onto 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 so awful that there's something in the human spirit that will like pull away from having to do the thing he needs 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 later learned is that this being an insectoid race, they think very differently about individual life. And then a lot of it, we think of them as monstrous and genocidal. It's not, it's that they see things very differently and if there'd been more peace attempts and communication 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 and 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 liked 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 and he's 17. 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 70s and 80s, 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 bovers, 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 in 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 card does play into that. But then it's like, well, but let's imagine that they are not that. 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 xenoside. 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. But like, they get to retire, they get to retire comfortably, I feel like, is the end result. And to be clear, the things they're doing, having real life consequences go much earlier before the war started. And they're 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. And there's a scene early in the book, forgive me for spoilers, but this is like 30 years old, 40 years old. Even the movie is like 10 years old, where, because 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 protection. And they're just like, they're going to wail on him. And he counter whales on them and kills the head bully. Right. And the administrators wind up walking this line where on the one hand, they don't want enter to know that that kid died. So they lied 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 that's why in some ways, I hate that it works. Because like, I fully agree. The adults are horrible. And I think that this should be the point of a discussion like this is, hey, you got to have limits on like, how young, like 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 25 year olds might not be emotionally developed to be soldiers. Like, so even 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 to 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 fellow soldier situations, that even when they are captured, slash rescued and like taken out of the situation, that often these kids are, they have learned for 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 we're, 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 25 year old, who is, you know, harming others is a problem. But that 25 year old was raised to be a child soldier at 12. 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 energy and vocalist 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 Padawans child soldiers? And how does that affect how we see the Jedi? I want to say a quick moment just to say though, that if you join 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 Man Man. And we've had it from other people during recordings. I'm going to try and get better about letting people know when we're recording. But it's pretty much generally for the Star Wars podcast, 530 Central Time on Wednesdays and for the superhero ethics, noon, Central Time on Thursdays. But of course, if those times don't work for you, you can always just, you know, watch later and send us feedback. All that information is on the show notes, Twitter, Facebook, you can figure out how to get a carrier pigeon into my house. You got to be really, really nice to that bird. But if you can do it, go for it. Telepathy, I'm open to everything. Send us feedback. We love to hear it. And most importantly, if you want to support this podcast and also get even more of our content, please think about it coming in a member. Five dollars a month or $55 a year gets you ad free content, bonus content at the end of most of the episodes, and also bonus episodes. We've only been doing those in the Star Wars podcast, but starting in the late summer or fall, we're going to start doing that for superhero ethics as well. And it's also a great way to support the podcast. And meanwhile, Zen Madam has been typing like mad, so I'm going 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." As a lot of fun to watch, I'll definitely put a link to his podcast in the show notes. Check that out. And Paul says he polished and is catching up on two times speed, so I'm sure it voices sound fun. He then writes, "I 100% agree with the point that 18 is arbitrary, and sure, I can't think of a better arbitrary age." And it also says the avatar. Yeah, we're definitely going to get into avatar of 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 or actually adult age, but still Padawans, but like, you know, when all our times are taking 12 and 13-year-olds into battle with them, are Padawan's child soldiers? Absolutely. And not only that, they're child military leaders. It seems like it's universal that 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 soldier, right? And so this is similar to Ender's game, where Ender and his, I think it's Gish is the word they use, is they are all basically admirals/captains of 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 mobile suit, they're very good at it. So they're often like leading in combat, but it's always like one-on-one. They're generally not commanding other troops. So the idea of Padawans, 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 in the Clone Wars that they were in together. And she's like, "How do I order people to their deaths?" And Anakin just kind of shrugs like, "You got to do what you got to do in war." And it's terrible. 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 ageist 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 yeah, Ahsoka is obviously troubled by that. But also look at Berasoffi, 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 12 or 13. And I think part of it's that a lot of the adults are just like, "Look, war is hell and the world is tough and that's how it is." And she kind of hasn't become that screwed up in 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 character specifically, but 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 in the Inclusatorius program. 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 he 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 canon books, that the Clone Wars 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 17, 18, like your Jedi Knights, congratulations, and we're gonna give you new Padawans as well, and all of you are 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 effect, 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 work in Padawans fall through the dark side and become inquisitors is because they were thrown into war at such a young age, and it really broke their brains in very understandable ways. Yeah, I personally, my feelings on war are such that it would be great if we didn't have them at all, 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, and 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 pipeline of indoctrination, I'll call it, which is what we're talking about here with like the recruitment, and now with like training and 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 you to want to kill people, right? That's kind of, you know, what we're doing, right? And then with kids, let me just say 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 II, and in World War I, but especially in World War II, in order to help Americans get over that like, you can't kill a human being, there was an awful lot of propaganda that tried to dehumanize, particularly the Japanese, and portray them as like, you know, hulking, asiatic monsters in these horrifically racist ways, and the specific goal of that was to be like, 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 I, between the Germans and the French and a particular game to the Russians, because they weren't really Europeans and things like that. And yeah, so I think, and as you talk about Ender's Game plays on the same thing of, when we see like an eight foot tall cockroach, there's a part of the, you know, for most people, that's probably like, that's horrifying, that's terrible, and that's part of what allows us to kill animals so freely, because they don't look like us, since we don't see them as life forms in the same way. Mm hmm. Yeah, so like with child soldiers, like, I think, where am I trying to go? Sorry, I lost my train of thought. No, this is my fault for interrupting, 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, I guess, or trick them into thinking that it's not real, like that with Ender's 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 are 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 isn't a mind of an adult, but in many ways, it's the mind of a child. Yeah. And she has, like, at one point, like, the two of them start falling in love, and she has real issues that, like, can this child consent to this? 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 10 years time. And that gets into all questions of psychology and stuff, but Disney seems to be really, I think Disney seems to have recognized, oh, that's a bad topic. No, I 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 an adult in terms of mind, right? Isn't it just memories? Like, because we have 18 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. And you implant those memories in a clone, and if you don't have them, like, because presumably, like, they're able to do, like, matrix-style training of, like, I know Kung Fu, like, I know how to fire them, like, they just quote unquote, program that, yeah, brains. But can you program morality? I don't know. 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, like, space opera. It's face opera. It's Star Wars dealing with. So I'm fine with them, just like, ignoring that. Does 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 Padawans 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 exceptional threat necessarily, because the separatists 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 66 and all that, but that's a different story. And this is a spoiler for the most recent episode of the Accolite. So if you are 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 going to put exact time notes in the show notes of when we start talking about this so that no one gets spoiled. So spoilers for the Accolite in three. I actually, even in the chat, I will say we are now done with that. You can listen again. But spoilers for the Accolite in three, two, one. You've seen the most recent episode, right, Ricky? Yeah. I told you I didn't like it. In the most recent episode, one of the Padawans who's been along with the group, Jackie, is killed by the person we realized is a dark side force user. Darth Biceps, as he's often heard by many, on the third-year side of these discussions. Fantastic acting, beautiful human being, incredible. And when that happens, Sol says to Kaimar, that character, how could you kill her? And Kaimar responds, you're the one who brought her here. And that line to me, knowing we were going to record this, hit me so hard, because kind of what he's saying is you're blaming me for killing the child who you brought into a combat situation. And it's not like he just murders her out of the blue. She's actively trying to kill him, because he's been trying to kill others. They're 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 Sol of what he's basically saying is like you put this child into this life or death situation. And that to me hit me really hard as they 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. Yeah, like in this situation, I would say more like a child cop, right? 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 absolutely like still a definite life threatening, endangering its situation. Yeah, cops, I think actually at one point I had a theory about like, if the Clone Wars about how the Jedi become soldiers, the High Republic is about how the Jedi become cops, which is the first step towards that. And 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 accolade. I'm going to 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 Airbender as I see it, is a different kind of situation, but is related because on the one hand, like one thing 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 on 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 blank on their names, all of a sudden? Not Suki, Saka and begins with a K, help me out. Kitarra? Kitarra, thank you. You have Saka and Kitarra 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 home. And from the most part, they're not soldiers, they're not being asked to be on the front lines of the actual 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 being, so you have to go fight awards for us. And so I think they do a very interesting 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 just wants to be a kid. He wants to just go off and 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. In 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 in like a lot of the Gundums, like the child literally sometimes like falls into the mobile suit and starts fighting and it's like, oh, like you you are better at this than any of the adults. And they they coined a term new type for like this special maybe psychic ability that some of these kids have. So, yeah, like I don't know what to deal deal with that because Katara and Sokka are just kids, right? And that's to me that's separate from the Aang, 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 in this universe, yes, I guess he has to do this because he's he's, you know, element superpower guy. Yeah. Yeah, like they're 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 would 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 it's 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 10 year old is now the avatar. All the bad people in the world are just going to say, you know what, we're going to 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 going to wait like I would imagine lots of times people would be like, Oh, cool, the avatar is only 11, like doors are open. Let's go. Let's do all the bad stuff. Yeah, the beginning of the fire nation does their sneak attack on the air temple, the air nomads to try to eliminate the avatar for 10 to 20 years or 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 without interference. Paul also says Katar and Sokka are also kids who've lost a lot to the war and decided on their own to get involved, which feels 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 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 our 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 16 year olds who are running off to Ford, well, you know, people are much younger who are running off to fight because they see their own families being killed, their own homes 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 something magical happens the day you turn 19, and now it's okay for you to go kill people, but not when you're 17 and 360 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 feels very different. But these, 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, like, I do want there to be rule, I don't want there to 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 know, 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 19th century and early 20th 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 as gentle when the 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 situations I just mentioned, you have oppressors that are breaking the journey of a convention for 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, the Israeli offensive force, and others will disagree, 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 16 years old and soldiers are coming to my town and killing my family, and more of my friends and my family, and they're coming to destroy my home and my friends, you know, I pick up a gun to fight these people who are attacking us at 14, 15, 16. 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, you know, 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 18, that's low on my list of the ethical problems 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 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. 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, use this 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 it's 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, I think that's fair. 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 16-year-olds in it, and the Ukrainian army has 16-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 going to send you home. Like, I'm okay with that. That's kind of what I'm saying. It's kind of like, 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 more sympathetic to war as hell when we had to do this. So, here's where I see what you're saying is that, as the invader, Russia has built up their army, and recruited, and planned, and trained soldiers, right? And as defenders, you are often not at the luxury of doing that. You're just kind of like using the best of what you got. 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 and Armed Conflict. Okay, that's a mouthful. It's shortened to OPAC, the optional protocol. It's often called. And this was like trying to draw a harder line of, you know, the arbitrary line of 18 years, and 18 years old, and trying to say, like, you cannot even recruit people until they are 18. They wanted to draw this hard line of 18 years, like you can't even recruit people younger than 18. And I think that's reasonable. Which I would just say, I think should make the Call of Duty games being specifically dined as like future equipment-cooled war crimes. But go on. Or at least a violation. War crimes is probably a harder 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 OPAC. In the final negotiations, only five states still advocated against the straight 18 principal. Egypt, Kuwait, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and most trenchantly, and this is the worst they use, the United States of America. And to me, you're like, when you open to this discussion, like you talked about Africa, right? And I think that like when you mention child soldiers to people, that is an image they get of like a kid, a black kid in Africa holding an AK-47. 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, etc. But it's a mess. It's a huge mess. And I think we have to get over this idea. Frankly, I think it's a racist idea that has been embedded in our new cycles and in our propaganda that this is like a quote unquote African profit. Yeah. No, I fully agree with that. I hope I said something about that earlier. I think I did. But if I do not, part of what I was trying to bring up the advocacy situation is I think that's what's in most people's heads. But like, yeah, I think it happens in all this. And even and that's what I 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 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 out the 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 18 and no one bothered to check. And there's a sort of like, and I think he isn't a lot of like movies about like World War II or Civil War with this 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 14 that like we're still going to call you a hero, you know, so yeah. This also mentions according to child soldiers international, the UK deployed 22 armed forces personnel aged under 18 to Iraq and Afghanistan between 2003 and 2010. And that's that's for armed forces, personal under 18. So we're not even talking about just just the recruiting, like they sent them into combat zones under the age of 18. 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 act of combat, like, oh, we don't want to, you know, ID check this kid right 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've been attacks, but nothing I think that raises the kind of existential threat that I'm talking about in a place like Ukraine. And 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 or whoever comes after him would be just as trenchant because God bless the USA. But yeah, so you're talking about the what's OPEC? Yeah, because OPEC was like, it's actually, I think, 18 years old, at least now. Oh, last years. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, that is so much more recent than any of us. So anyway, we're getting previewed and illegally is here. And as you said, you know, we're not lawyers, but I think this is a good discussion. And fans would love to hear what you've got to say. As always, you can find all the ways to contact us on the ethicalpanda.com. Please do that. Reiki, here are the 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 mecha's, but the Evas, the mecha's 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 protagonist's father, like literal father. And you know, we talk about like these, how adults need to be responsible. And this is just like, I understand why this is so beloved, because the questions it brings up and the 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. Mary 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 be doing an episode about it at some point soon. Well, we can thank you so much for bringing up this topic. Thank you, Jared, for helping to push us towards it as well. It's one we're going to have a lot more to say about. We want so much feedback from the we want so much more feedback from our listeners and stuff like that. But we're in pause for now. We have some great bonus content about an idea about Star Wars that I had. But for everybody else, thank you so much for tuning in. We have spoken. [Music]
