Status in an honor culture, ironically, seems to be about how much you can cheat
The gods are seen to favor you in proportion to how much cheating they let you get away with.
This is a big theme in the Mahabharata. 90% of the cheating in it is by the god-favored ‘good guys’.
Feels like a good subject for a comparative lit phd. If the pattern is in 2 unrelated mythologies it’s probably universal like the hero’s journey 