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 n

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.