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I find this essay to be poorly written and wrongly positioned. Ender is an anti-hero. He does what he has to because he is a useful tool, a pawn in the hands of

I find this essay to be poorly written and wrongly positioned. Ender is an anti-hero. He does what he has to because he is a useful tool, a pawn in the hands of people more powerful than him. His motivations are intertwined with theirs because he is fighting to save the same people they are (for him it's his sister Valentine really). The author of the essay recognizes Ender's portrayal of guilt, but suggests that Card wipes the slate clean with every incident. It is quite the opposite. Much of Ender's internal monologue is about him trying and failing to rationalize his actions. He has nightmares. "Speaker For The Dead" and "Xenocide" are about Ender struggling to come to terms with his xenocide, inventing new ways of assuaging that guilt. It is telling that Ender carries his burden for roughly a millenia (a terrible punishment), and only <spoiler alert> sacrificing himself allows some manner of redemption. He also <spoiler alert> saves the buggers after all. No one except Ender knows the location of the young queen's cocoon. He could easily let her be captured or killed, yet deliberately places her in a secluded part of the galaxy where she can grow and repopulate. These are the actions of an ethical human being, not an amoral, cold-blooded killer. Good sci-fi builds on moral conflicts in present-day society. Card is keenly aware of this. Ender's Game is an unrealistic sympathy card? The pilots of the Enola Gay pushed a button and instantly exterminated 50,000 people. How do they feel about this? Does one think it was just another day at the office for them? Just another flight? We have drone pilots kill people daily. They burn out after a few years, suffer from PTSD. Xenocide has a very tense scene where the Admiral <spoiler> has to make an Ender-like decision. People like Ender exist because we as a society demand that they exist. That's ultimately Card's moral message.

mcguire 8y ago
Doesn't Ender continue to attack Stilson and Bonzo after they are down? Are we to assume that he doesn't know that doing such a thing could be lethal? If I remember correctly, isn't the military surprised that Ender uses the super-bomb against the bugger's planet? By the way, what's your take on "Cold Equations?"
- glitchc 8y ago
  Ender is a survivalist. It's a character trait some people have. He never starts fights, but he finishes them. It is prudent defensive strategy in conflict to neutralize the source in some permanent fashion, just to ensure that this source will never threaten you again. Stilson and Bonzo could have stopped the fight at any time by conceding, giving up, walking away, showing remorse. They don't. They fight till the end. In both cases, Ender finishes the fight, but doesn't know how his opponent fared. It's third-party accounts and glimpses of evidence that hint at the truth, and Card makes more hints available to the reader (through third-party conversations) than what Ender is exposed to. Regarding surprise: Remember that Ender is not just chosen for his intelligence, but also his temperament. Peter and Valentine are just as smart, Peter probably the smartest out of the three. Graff and the others are banking on Ender's survivalist trait to do the hard things when necessary, make the decisions that no one else had the courage to make. In the final battle, Ender's rationale was this: The yield of the MD device was too low to take the bugger fleet down by itself. The hive knew about the MD device and was countering his actions by constant movements to minimize local clustering. The only option was to target the planet to yield a large enough cascade. Even then, he didn't know if it would be large enough to take out the entire enemy fleet. In the end, it was large enough to destroy half the human fleet as well. He was taking a calculated risk. It was cold, ruthless and utterly unexpected. Even the Hive Queen, who was in touch with his thoughts on and off, didn't think he would do it. When she realizes his true intentions, she tries her best to block his path, throwing ships directly in the line of fire. It was a very high-risk strategy. He could have run out of ships before he got close enough for instance. The real question is: Would he do it again if placed in the exact same situation with the exact same facts and resources at his disposal? Ender spends the rest of the series struggling with that very question. Ultimately, he comes to realize that, yes, he would do it all over again if he had to. Thank you for the recommendation on "Cold Equations". Haven't read it, will happily take a look. Hopefully my local library has a copy.
  - jarcane 8y ago
    Ender is a survivalist. It's a character trait some people have. He never starts fights, but he finishes them. It is prudent defensive strategy in conflict to neutralize the source in some permanent fashion, just to ensure that this source will never threaten you again. Stilson and Bonzo could have stopped the fight at any time by conceding, giving up, walking away, showing remorse. They don't. They fight till the end. Did you actually read the whole essay? The author makes exactly this point about Ender's mindset. The only thing you seem to be disagreeing on is whether it's a good one.
- LordKano 8y ago
  Doesn't Ender continue to attack Stilson and Bonzo after they are down? Stilson, yes. Bonzo, no. Bonzo was effectively dead but still standing when Ender kicked him in the groin. Are we to assume that he doesn't know that doing such a thing could be lethal? Ender was 6 when he killed Stilson. I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that a 6 year old, even one of the smartest on the planet, might not have a full appreciation that kicking someone who had just attacked him might kill him or a full appreciation of what death is. Maybe the scenarios are contrived but I still maintain that Ender is an innocent in both cases because his use of force was intended to prevent serious injury to himself. He was facing superior numbers of physically stronger adversaries. If I remember correctly, isn't the military surprised that Ender uses the super-bomb against the bugger's planet? I think they intended for him to use the MDD but none of them wanted to take the moral responsibility for telling him to destroy an entire species. They wanted Xenocide without being responsible for it.

mcguire 8y ago

Doesn't Ender continue to attack Stilson and Bonzo after they are down? Are we to assume that he doesn't know that doing such a thing could be lethal? If I remember correctly, isn't the military surprised that Ender uses the super-bomb against the bugger's planet? By the way, what's your take on "Cold Equations?"

glitchc 8y ago
Ender is a survivalist. It's a character trait some people have. He never starts fights, but he finishes them. It is prudent defensive strategy in conflict to neutralize the source in some permanent fashion, just to ensure that this source will never threaten you again. Stilson and Bonzo could have stopped the fight at any time by conceding, giving up, walking away, showing remorse. They don't. They fight till the end. In both cases, Ender finishes the fight, but doesn't know how his opponent fared. It's third-party accounts and glimpses of evidence that hint at the truth, and Card makes more hints available to the reader (through third-party conversations) than what Ender is exposed to. Regarding surprise: Remember that Ender is not just chosen for his intelligence, but also his temperament. Peter and Valentine are just as smart, Peter probably the smartest out of the three. Graff and the others are banking on Ender's survivalist trait to do the hard things when necessary, make the decisions that no one else had the courage to make. In the final battle, Ender's rationale was this: The yield of the MD device was too low to take the bugger fleet down by itself. The hive knew about the MD device and was countering his actions by constant movements to minimize local clustering. The only option was to target the planet to yield a large enough cascade. Even then, he didn't know if it would be large enough to take out the entire enemy fleet. In the end, it was large enough to destroy half the human fleet as well. He was taking a calculated risk. It was cold, ruthless and utterly unexpected. Even the Hive Queen, who was in touch with his thoughts on and off, didn't think he would do it. When she realizes his true intentions, she tries her best to block his path, throwing ships directly in the line of fire. It was a very high-risk strategy. He could have run out of ships before he got close enough for instance. The real question is: Would he do it again if placed in the exact same situation with the exact same facts and resources at his disposal? Ender spends the rest of the series struggling with that very question. Ultimately, he comes to realize that, yes, he would do it all over again if he had to. Thank you for the recommendation on "Cold Equations". Haven't read it, will happily take a look. Hopefully my local library has a copy.
- jarcane 8y ago
  Ender is a survivalist. It's a character trait some people have. He never starts fights, but he finishes them. It is prudent defensive strategy in conflict to neutralize the source in some permanent fashion, just to ensure that this source will never threaten you again. Stilson and Bonzo could have stopped the fight at any time by conceding, giving up, walking away, showing remorse. They don't. They fight till the end. Did you actually read the whole essay? The author makes exactly this point about Ender's mindset. The only thing you seem to be disagreeing on is whether it's a good one.
LordKano 8y ago
Doesn't Ender continue to attack Stilson and Bonzo after they are down? Stilson, yes. Bonzo, no. Bonzo was effectively dead but still standing when Ender kicked him in the groin. Are we to assume that he doesn't know that doing such a thing could be lethal? Ender was 6 when he killed Stilson. I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that a 6 year old, even one of the smartest on the planet, might not have a full appreciation that kicking someone who had just attacked him might kill him or a full appreciation of what death is. Maybe the scenarios are contrived but I still maintain that Ender is an innocent in both cases because his use of force was intended to prevent serious injury to himself. He was facing superior numbers of physically stronger adversaries. If I remember correctly, isn't the military surprised that Ender uses the super-bomb against the bugger's planet? I think they intended for him to use the MDD but none of them wanted to take the moral responsibility for telling him to destroy an entire species. They wanted Xenocide without being responsible for it.