Krishna told Karna before the war that he was Kunti's firstborn son. Did he want to save Karna?

[u/navs3011]

Before the war started, Krishna told Karna the truth he had spent his entire life searching for. He told him - "You are not Radha's son. You are Kunti's firstborn. Your father is Surya, the sun god. You are, by birth, the eldest Pandava, senior even to Yudhishthira."
And then Krishna made the offer: come to our side. The Pandavas will accept you as their eldest brother. Yudhishthira will step aside. You will be king of Hastinapura. Everything you were denied your entire life - the respect, the legitimacy, the throne - it's yours. Right now. Just change sides.

Think about what Krishna was actually doing here.

He wasn't just trying to win the war by poaching Duryodhana's greatest weapon. He was offering Karna the resolution of every wound he had ever carried. The humiliation at the tournament where Drona rejected him for his caste. The decades of being called Sutaputra by people who knew he was more. A lifetime of fighting for legitimacy that was always one step ahead of him.

Krishna was offering him everything. And Karna knew it.
His response, recorded in the text, is one of the most quietly devastating lines in the entire epic:
"Thank you for telling me I am the eldest Kunti Putra. I have been searching for this answer all my life."
He sat with it. He didn't deny it or argue. He let it land.
And then he said no.
Not because he didn't believe Krishna. Not because he wanted the war. But because Duryodhana had done something nobody else in Karna's life had ever done. He had accepted him. Completely. Without condition. Before Karna had proved anything. When the entire world had decided he wasn't worth accepting.

He then made one request to Krishna- to keep this conversation secret. To not tell the Pandavas that their greatest enemy is their eldest brother, at least not until after the war.

After Karna refused, Krishna says that the Pandavas' victory was now certain.

But if the Pandavas' victory was certain, why did Krishna offer Karna to change sides by telling him the truth? Did he want to save Karna?

What are your views?

[u/vajra__20]

I’m thinking Krishna wanted to save the other four Pandavas who could have been killed by Karna if he wasn’t aware of the fact that they were his younger brothers.

[u/niharkm → u/vajra__20]

ya either ways to bring karna to them or else if doesn't let him realise that he can't kill his brothers