Cringe Side-Quest #2: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - Enemy gate is Down's syndrome

[Jewthulhu]

So the space government picks their ultimate champions by watching their brain-cams from ages three to six??? How many hours of Space Paw Patrol do these space-glowies have to sit through?

It's been a bit since I took psychological development. Can you even tell anything solid about the kid by that age outside of whether they have major delays or not?

 

[millais]

Is this book redpilled on the Jewish question?

I remember there's some passage that mentions the top 3 military officials in the international space force are an Israeli Jew, an American Jew, and a Russian Jew.

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Imagine I'd embedded that music queue that played over the Rugrats title-cards.

"All right, it's off. How's he doing?”

"You live inside somebody's body for a few years, you get used to it. I look at his face now, I can't tell what's going on. I'm not used to seeing his facial expressions. I'm used to feeling them.”

Feel them? Was he hooked up to some kind of virtual-reality rig? God, that must've gotten boring. I kind of hope this is the guy who who writes the tv tropes pages for Nick Jr. shows, because the alternative is frankly terrifying. And before you say they're written by parents with young kids, like fuck anyone who edits tv tropes has kids.

"Come on, we're not talking about psychoanalysis here. We're soldiers, not witch doctors.

Based.

If you're not interested in anaylising the boy's psychology, why... all of this?

You just saw him beat the guts out of the leader of a gang.”

This makes it sound like they were the Crips and not a gaggle of dumb first-graders.

"He was thorough. He didn't just beat him, he beat him deep. Like Mazer Rackham at the--”

"Spare me. So in the judgment of the committee, he passes.

"He kicked him in the nuts, sir. Square in da nuts..."

"Mostly. Let's see what he does with his brother, now that the monitor's off.”

Okay, so the Fleet clearly has some way of watching Ender quite closely even without the monitor, so why did we need the invasive neural implant?

"His brother. Aren't you afraid of what his brother will do to him?”

"You were the one who told me that this wasn't a no-risk business.”

So, the shadowy voices have reason to believe Ender's brother could kill or cripple him now that he doesn't have the monitor, and despite already deciding that Ender is the last, best hope for humanity, they're going to let Peter give it the ol' college try for one more data-point? Fuck, no wonder the buggers don't think we're sapient.

"I went back through some of the tapes. I can't help it. I like the kid. I think were going to screw him up.”

"Of course we are. It's our job. We're the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, but we eat the little bastards alive.”

"We're morally ambiguous!"

"I'm sorry, Ender," Valentine whispered. She was looking at the bandaid on his neck.

Ender touched the wall and the door closed behind him. "I don't care. I'm glad it's gone.”

"What's gone?" Peter walked into the parlor, chewing on a mouthful of bread and peanut butter.

The fact that Peter talks with his mouth full might be the most childlike thing in this book.

Ender did not see Peter as the beautiful ten-year-old boy that grown-ups saw, with dark, thick, tousled hair and a face that could have belonged to Alexander the Great. Ender looked at Peter only to detect anger or boredom, the dangerous moods that almost always led to pain. Now as Peter's eyes discovered the bandaid on his neck, the telltale flicker of anger appeared.

You might have noticed that Card describes Peter the way a pederastic Latin master in a mid-century English novel would. Start as you mean to continue.

Valentine saw it too. "Now he's like us," she said, trying to soothe him before he had time to strike.

But Peter would not be soothed. "Like us? He keeps the little sucker till he's six years old. When did you lose yours? You were three. I lost mine before I was five. He almost made it, little bastard, little bugger.”

Man, Peter is really into laser-tag. I'd have pegged him for more of an airsoft kid.

"Well, now your guardian angels aren't watching over you," Peter said. "Now they aren't checking to see if you feel pain, listening to hear what I'm saying, seeing what I'm doing to you. How about that? How about it?”

Ender shrugged.

Suddenly Peter smiled and clapped his hands together in a mockery of good cheer. "Let's play buggers and astronauts," he said.

That sounds like a Dalek episode written by Bernard Cribbons.

It would not be a good game, Ender knew it was not a question of winning. When kids played in the corridors, whole troops of them, the buggers never won, and sometimes the games got mean. But here in their flat, the game would start mean, and the bugger couldn't just go empty and quit the way buggers did in the real wars. The bugger was in it until the astronaut decided it was over.

We call that topping from the bottom.

Peter opened his bottom drawer and took out the bugger mask. Mother had got upset at him when Peter bought it, but Dad pointed out that the war wouldn't go away just because you hid bugger masks and wouldn't let your kids play with make-believe laser guns.

Now I'm curious, did people sell like, racist Japanese masks during WW2?

The better to play the war games, and have a better chance of surviving when the buggers came again.

That's like thinking Cops and Robbers will prepare you for a home-invasion.

If I survive the games, thought Ender. He put on the mask. It closed him in like a hand pressed tight against his face. But this isn't how it feels to he a bugger, thought Ender. They don't wear this face like a mask, it is their face. On their home worlds, do the buggers put on human masks, and play? And what do they call its? Slimies, because we're so soft and oily compared to them?

"Watch out, Slimy," Ender said.

See, this feels like something a bright kid might ponder. That mixture of curiosity coupled with a limited frame of reference.

Ender couldn't see it coming, except a slight shift of Peter's weight; the mask cut out his peripheral vision. Suddenly there was the pain and pressure of a blow to the side of his head; he lost balance, fell that way.

"Don't see too well, do you, bugger?" said Peter.

Ender began to take off the mask. Peter put his toe against Ender's groin. "Don't take off the mask," Peter said.

Always with the groin in this book. I'm shocked Ender doesn't defeat the buggers at the end by

"Peter, stop it," Ender said.

"Peter, stop it. Very good. So you buggers can guess our names. You can make yourselves sound like pathetic, cute little children so we'll love you and be nice to you. But it doesn't work. I can see you for what you really are.

"A twenty-something!"

They meant you to be human, little Third, but you're really a bugger, and now it shows.”

Or that.

He lifted his foot, took a step, and then knelt on Ender, his knee pressing into Ender's belly just below the breastbone. He put more and more of his weight on Ender. It became hard to breathe.

"I could kill you like this," Peter whispered. "Just press and press until you're dead. And I could say that I didn't know it would hurt you, that we were just playing, and they'd believe me, and everything would be fine. And you'd be dead. Everything would be fine.”

I'm kind of shocked that Peter's apparently so good at faking being halfway normal given he can't even wait twelve hours to try and murder Ender.

"I'll tell," Valentine said.

"No one would believe you.”

"They'd believe me.”

"Then you're dead, too, sweet little sister.”

"Oh, yes," said Valentine. "They'll believe that. 'I didn't know it would kill Andrew. And when he was dead, I didn't know it would kill Valentine too.'“

So, they won't think you're a murderer, but they will think you're retarded.

"You're all talk," Valentine said. "You don't mean any of it.”

"I don't?”

"And do you know why you don't mean it?" Valentine asked. "Because you want to be in government someday. You want to be elected.

Pete Buttigieg: The Untold Story.

And they won't elect you if your opponents can dig up the fact that your brother and sister both died in suspicious accidents when they were little. Especially because of the letter I've put in my secret file, which will be opened in the event of my death.”

I mean, the fact there's probably also reams and reams of footage of Pete being a psycho from all three of your monitors. I wouldn't blame a bunch of kids for not considering that, but these are also the kind of kids who prepare secret files in case they're murdered.

"Don't give me that kind of crap," Peter said.

"It says, I didn't die a natural death. Peter killed me, and if he hasn't already killed Andrew, he will soon. Not enough to convict you, but enough to keep you from ever getting elected.”

"You're his monitor now," said Peter. "You better watch him, day and night. You better be there.”

"Ender and I aren't stupid. We scored as well as you did on everything. Better on some things. We're all such wonderfully bright children. You're not the smartest, Peter, just the biggest.”

One thing children don't tend to do, bring up the fact they're children to each other.

"Oh, I know. But there'll come a day when you aren't there with him, when you forget. And suddenly you'll remember, and you'll rush to him, and there he'll be perfectly all right. And the next time you won't worry so much, and you won't come so fast. And every time, he'll be all right. And you'll think that I forgot. Even though you'll remember that I said this, you'll think that I forgot. And years will pass. And then there'll be a terrible accident, and I'll find his body, and I'll cry and cry over him, and you'll remember this conversation, Vally, but you'll be ashamed of yourself for remembering, because you'll know that I changed, that it really was an accident, that it's cruel of you even to remember what I said in a childhood quarrel. Except that it'll be true. I'm gonna save this up, and he's gonna die, and you won't do a thing, not a thing. But you go on believing that I'm just the biggest.”

Or say things like "childhood quarrel." These characters talk like if Lemony Snicket had neither a tongue nor a cheek to put it in.

Peter leaped to his feet and started for her. She shied away. Ender pried off his mask. Peter flopped back on his bed and started to laugh. Loud, but with real mirth, tears coming to his eyes. "Oh, you guys are just super, just the biggest suckers on the planet earth.”

"Now he's going to tell us it was all a joke," Valentine said.

"Not a joke, a game. I can make you guys believe anything. I can make you dance around like puppets." In a phony monster voice he said, "I'm going to kill you and chop you into little pieces and put you into the garbage hole." He laughed again. "Biggest suckers in the solar system.”

Yeah, going retro today!

There was no getting to him. Peter was a murderer at heart, and nobody knew it but Valentine and Ender.

Mother came home and commiserated with Ender about the monitor. Father came home and kept saying it was such a wonderful surprise, they had such fantastic children that the government told them to have three and now the government didn't want to take any of them after all, so here they were with three, they still had a Third... until Ender wanted to scream at him, I know I'm a Third, I know it, if you want I'll go away so you don't have to be embarrassed in front of everybody, I'm sorry I lost the monitor and now you have three kids and no obvious explanation, so inconvenient for you, I'm sorry sorry sorry.

You'd think being so eugenically valuleable the government lets you pump out an extra kid would be a mark of pride in this society.

He thinks I'm asleep. He's going to kill me.

Peter walked to the bed, and sure enough, he did not lift himself up to his bed. Instead he came and stood by Ender's head.

But he did not reach for a pillow to smother Ender. He did not have a weapon.

He whispered, "Ender, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know how it feels. I'm sorry, I'm your brother. I love you.”

A long time later, Peter's even breathing said that he was asleep. Ender peeled the bandaid from his neck. And for the second time that day he cried.

...Okay, that's legit a bit unsettling.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Ender's Game is one of the books that I read as a teen and never got the appeal of. Ender and his family are all massive mary sues and the book leans way too much into power fantasy. And it's all overblown shit of "you need to be superhuman to think in 3D". For example, Ender, who is already in a school for incredibly intelligent children, needs to be better than the other children in any other way no matter how many disadvantages he gets because he is the author favourite.

Harry Potter was at least smart enough to make Harry suck at some fields, at least in the later books. Which makes him more relatable as a character, and that in turn makes the surrounding world have more appeal for people to keep being interested decades afterwards.

And it all builds up for a final battle with a twist that Ender's latter training was all real and he wins by a suicide maneuver, which is somehow a thing that wouldn't have happened had he known it was real (despite suicide maneuvers being pretty common). Also the book tries to make some shit with the aliens being really neutral or some shit, which is a trope I never liked.

 

[Saint Agustin]

Ender's Game is one of the books that I read as a teen and never got the appeal of. Ender and his family are all massive mary sues and the book leans way too much into power fantasy. And it's all overblown shit of "you need to be superhuman to think in 3D". For example, Ender, who is already in a school for incredibly intelligent children, needs to be better than the other children in any other way no matter how many disadvantages he gets because he is the author favourite.

Harry Potter was at least smart enough to make Harry suck at some fields, at least in the later books. Which makes him more relatable as a character, and that in turn makes the surrounding world have more appeal for people to keep being interested decades afterwards.

And it all builds up for a final battle with a twist that Ender's latter training was all real and he wins by a suicide maneuver, which is somehow a thing that wouldn't have happened had he known it was real (despite suicide maneuvers being pretty common). Also the book tries to make some shit with the aliens being really neutral or some shit, which is a trope I never liked.

And in the second book he ends up becoming a simp for a nigger in a backwards world and the stepdad of her children or something, it's really fucking weird.

 

[VargReallyDidNothingWrong]

Have you tried plugging it back in?

Are you reading this book on some sort of OCR scanned PDF or what? Because "modern" being transcribed as "modem" seems like an OCR bug from scanning paper books.

Also your snarky comments are unfunny and gay and the fact that you wrote 19 paragraphs of unfunny snark for just the dedication page for the book shows this will be an extremely tedious thread to read.

 

[Kosher Dill]

This whole scene with Peter goes down extra-ridiculous when immediately preceded by the author's declaration that yes, real kids on 20th-century Earth are really like this. We're being asked to accept that Peter is a murderous psycho who's only being held back by the idea of space-kompromat photon-torpedoing his electoral career?
And wait, this is a democracy? You'd think the "No Brain Monitors For Children Party" would do better in the polls.
The "I love you" scene rings a bit hollow right after Peter crows about how anything he does at any time might be an elaborate mindfuck. Maybe that's intended.

Also, the space-glowies had to actually live in Ender's head and endure it when Valentine made him watch Hannah Montana with her? Tough job, hope they got hazard pay.

We've got our first hint of what they're looking for and it sounds like they want intelligence plus a certain cold brutality. And you can apparently fail the brutality screening at age three.
(EDIT: does this mean they put the brain implant in Valentine at age 3 and then said "lol nah" less than a year later and ripped it back out? Jesus.)
I kind of feel like this book should have just had alien protagonists at this rate.

Has it been explained just how "hot" the war with the buggers is? It's implied that it's closer to "Grow up and fight in the border wars" than "Duck and cover, bombardment incoming".

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Has it been explained just how "hot" the war with the buggers is? It's implied that it's closer to "Grow up and fight in the border wars" than "Duck and cover, bombardment incoming".

If I recall correctly, the buggers have made at least one devestating attack on Earth itself... so naturally, population control.

 

[LoverofPi]

You'd think being so eugenically valuleable the government lets you pump out an extra kid would be a mark of pride in this society.

Yeah, the whole third thing would make a hell of a lot more sense if in adult society having a third kid was a massive mark of pride and thus the kids would see any third as being a self important shithead ("He thinks he's hot shit just because he's a third") and have that lead to the bullying.

Has it been explained just how "hot" the war with the buggers is? It's implied that it's closer to "Grow up and fight in the border wars" than "Duck and cover, bombardment incoming".

Cold, but worryingly so. They were on the cusp of total victory and then just stopped, ran away, and vanished. The military and society are on a state of paranoid alert for if they ever come back.

 

[TheAmbiguousLurker]

This makes it sound like they were the Crips and not a gaggle of dumb first-graders.

I'll have you know that Macaroni Neckies were the terror of the playground and horded all the best toys.

Okay, so the Fleet clearly has some way of watching Ender quite closely even without the monitor, so why did we need the invasive neural implant?

For the immersion.

So, the shadowy voices have reason to believe Ender's brother could kill or cripple him now that he doesn't have the monitor, and despite already deciding that Ender is the last, best hope for humanity, they're going to let Peter give it the ol' college try for one more data-point? Fuck, no wonder the buggers don't think we're sapient.

The future is very boring, watching Ender get his shit kicked in is the closest thing they have to entertainment.

"He was thorough. He didn't just beat him, he beat him deep. Like Mazer Rackham at the--”

Unless he was channeling his inner Johnny Cage, a nut shot ain't that impressive.

"I went back through some of the tapes. I can't help it. I like the kid. I think were going to screw him up.”

Okay, that's like several typos across two chapters.

a face that could have belonged to Alexander the Great

The fuck does that mean? How many kids reading this is gonna know what Alexander the Great looked like?

But Peter would not be soothed. "Like us? He keeps the little sucker till he's six years old. When did you lose yours? You were three. I lost mine before I was five. He almost made it, little bastard, little bugger.”

"He was one year more than me, clearly we're completely different!"

"Well, now your guardian angels aren't watching over you," Peter said. "Now they aren't checking to see if you feel pain, listening to hear what I'm saying, seeing what I'm doing to you. How about that? How about it?”

I can't blame him, there's probably nothing on TV.

"Then you're dead, too, sweet little sister.”

Weird how he's so willing to murder the sister yet, as far as I can tell, he's only focused on attacking Ender to the point she has no problem calling him out earlier.

Especially because of the letter I've put in my secret file, which will be opened in the event of my death.”

There's just something so awkward about this dialogue.

Not enough to convict you, but enough to keep you from ever getting elected.

Now I know this is fiction, but this is getting a tad unrealistic...

"Oh, I know. But there'll come a day when you aren't there with him, when you forget. And suddenly you'll remember, and you'll rush to him, and there he'll be perfectly all right. And the next time you won't worry so much, and you won't come so fast. And every time, he'll be all right. And you'll think that I forgot. Even though you'll remember that I said this, you'll think that I forgot. And years will pass. And then there'll be a terrible accident, and I'll find his body, and I'll cry and cry over him, and you'll remember this conversation, Vally, but you'll be ashamed of yourself for remembering, because you'll know that I changed, that it really was an accident, that it's cruel of you even to remember what I said in a childhood quarrel. Except that it'll be true. I'm gonna save this up, and he's gonna die, and you won't do a thing, not a thing. But you go on believing that I'm just the biggest.”

"I just want to make sure everyone knows that I'm a piece of shit that no one would miss or question if I suddenly end up dead. You get all that Government agents listening in?"

There was no getting to him. Peter was a murderer at heart, and nobody knew it but Valentine and Ender.

How could anyone know? He hides it so well!

 

[Kosher Dill]

They were on the cusp of total victory and then just stopped, ran away, and vanished.

What, vanished? So there's no bug war going on at all right now but the dictatorship democracy is still doing this weird super-warrior program?
... I guess that's the least unrealistic part of this whole thing.

You know, the whole thing about eugenically (?) selecting for the just-right level of cruelty rubs me the wrong way. Since when have the warlords of the world had any trouble instilling cruelty in grown men, let alone children?

 

[Jewthulhu]

Oh boy, another obligatory bullying scene that makes less sense given their ages. It's also not very well-written in my opinion. I get you likely cut some bits from it but it feels too sudden and completely unmotivated.

Are you reading this book on some sort of OCR scanned PDF or what? Because "modern" being transcribed as "modem" seems like an OCR bug from scanning paper books.

Also your snarky comments are unfunny and gay and the fact that you wrote 19 paragraphs of unfunny snark for just the dedication page for the book shows this will be an extremely tedious thread to read.

Snarking on bad writing is literally the point of "Let's Read" threads.

And wait, this is a democracy? You'd think the "No Brain Monitors For Children Party" would do better in the polls.

Hell, I don't think enforced birth control does too well in polls either. Maybe a better term would be "notcracy:" a democracy, but not really.

What, vanished? So there's no bug war going on at all right now but the dictatorship democracy is still doing this weird super-warrior program?
... I guess that's the least unrealistic part of this whole thing.

Honestly if there's some super big bug menace out there that almost destroyed humanity you'd think they'd be doing more to build up the army (and to hunt down where the bugs went to).

 

[LoverofPi]

What, vanished? So there's no bug war going on at all right now

No, there is a war against the bugs going on. I would explain more but I don't want to steal shuttlepunk's thunder when we get to that point in the book.

but the dictatorship democracy is still doing this weird super-warrior program?
... I guess that's the least unrealistic part of this whole thing.

Yeah, the war with the formics was never stopped as far as earth is concerned, so they're looking at all sorts of crazy shit. Why one of those things is trying to make a six year old a supersoldier is rather beyond me. Maybe they think if he's cute enough they can prop him up and no one will give a shit about the war crimes they and he commit.

You know, the whole thing about eugenically (?) selecting for the just-right level of cruelty rubs me the wrong way. Since when have the warlords of the world had any trouble instilling cruelty in grown men, let alone children?

There is an explanation for that too, but it's really strange and I suspect more a reason for the PTB to reject his siblings so he can be a third kid to he can be a bullied outcast.

 

[VargReallyDidNothingWrong]

Snarking on bad writing is literally the point of "Let's Read" threads.

You nerds definitely should have been bullied more as kids, and MST3K should never have become mainstream humor.

Yeah, the war with the formics was never stopped as far as earth is concerned, so they're looking at all sorts of crazy shit. Why one of those things is trying to make a six year old a supersoldier is rather beyond me. Maybe they think if he's cute enough they can prop him up and no one will give a shit about the war crimes they and he commit.

Children are more malleable but also more likely to "think outside the box". Nobody on Earth gives a shit about warcriming buggers, they see them as monsters. Part of the reason Ender fucks off to space after the end of the first book after the traumatic finale and he realizes what he's done.

 

[LoverofPi]

You nerds definitely should have been bullied more as kids, and MST3K should never have become mainstream humor.



Children are more malleable but also more likely to "think outside the box".

Children are malleable, yes, but they make for very lousy soldiers and commanders.

Nobody on Earth gives a shit about warcriming buggers, they see them as monsters. Part of the reason Ender fucks off to space after the end of the first book after the traumatic finale and he realizes what he's done.

I was not referring to any of the shit he does regarding the formics.

Also hush, you're getting way ahead of the plot.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Oh yeah, one more thing:

We're the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, but we eat the little bastards alive.”

The wicked witch in the gingerbread house specifically did not want to eat Hansel and Gretel alive, she tried to bake them in her oven. You'd think a story about small children would be more on-the-ball when it comes to fairy tales.

 

[Billy Bob Dick]

I had two major problems with "Ender's Game":

1. It's an apologetic for genocide.
   • "What if the genocide is committed by a CHILD? What if the child is a GENIUS? What if the child REALLY, REALLY DOESN'T MEAN to genocide? THAT WOULD MAKE THE GENOCIDE OK WOULDN'T IT"
     • Fuck off, Orson, you fucking hack.
   • If you pay attention, Ender is a violent, psychopathic little shit. Given the opportunity, the little fuck would've committed a genocide whether or not he thought was in a simulation. He just needed an excuse.
2. It's a dumb man's "Dune."
   • Think about it: Ender Wiggin is just Paul Atreides without the nuance. Both of them are genocidal mass murderers, but Frank Herbert at least had the balls to involve human casualties and look at the implications head-on.
   • The hackiest part of OSC's hacky sci-fi hackiness is his attempt to rip off "Dune" and think that no one would ever notice the parallels. Orson, you arrogant prick. You suck and your book sucks.

carry on, this is fun

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Another day, another round of autism stickers.

"The sister is our weak link. He really loves her.”

"I know. She can undo it all, from the start. He won't want to leave her.”

I'm glad Orson Scott Card put this exchange here. Can you think of a more graceful way of establishing that a six year old boy loves his sister and might not want to leave her behind?

"So, what are you going to do?”

"Persuade him that he wants to come with us more than he wants to stay with her.”

"How will you do that?”

"I'll lie to him.”

"And if that doesn't work?”

"Then I'll tell the truth. We're allowed to do that in emergencies. We can't plan for everything, you know.”

Do you think Graff keeps a book full of wry comments ready for these chats?

Ender wasn't very hungry during breakfast. He kept wondering what it would be like at school. Facing Stilson after yesterday's fight. What Stilson's friends would do. Probably nothing, but he couldn't be sure.

Ender then got the shit kicked out of him by five Janurary birthdays, who were all enrolled into Battle School and won the Second Formic War with their "gang up on the nerd" strategem.

Peter came into the room. "Morning. Ender. Thanks for leaving your slimy washcloth in the middle of the shower.”

"Just for you," Ender murmured.

Does this count as foreshadowing?

"Andrew, you have to eat.”

Ender held out his wrists, a gesture that said, So feed it to me through a needle.

"Very funny." Mother said. "I try to be concerned, but it makes no difference to my genius children.”

"It was all your genes that made us, Mom." said Peter. "We sure didn't get any from Dad.”

The genes for talking like a shitty stage play?

"I heard that," Father said, not looking up from the news that was being displayed on the table while he ate.

I feel like making a surface you eat off a smartscreen seems like a really shitty idea, but it's also the kind of shitty idea that's probably been marketed in real life, so eh.

The table beeped. Someone was at the door.

I feel like every work set on a near-future Earth makes sure to insert a futuristic replacement for doorbells.

"Who is it?" Mother asked.

Father thumbed a key and a man appeared on the video. He was wearing the only military uniform that meant anything anymore, the I.F., the International Fleet.

I assume the I.F were what happened when U.N Peacekeepers decided they could do more than ignore genocide and nonce around with the local children. I mean, they're still down for doing weird shit to kids, obviously, but they've got a broader portfolio these days.

"I thought it was over," said Father.

Peter said nothing, just poured milk over his cereal.

And Ender thought, Maybe I won't have to go to school today after all.

I should start keeping track of thoughts that actually read like they came from a kid.

"You're in deep poo," said Peter. "They found out what you did to Stilson, and now they're gonna make you do time out in the Belt.”

"I'm only six, moron. I'm a juvenile.”

"You're a Third, turd. You've got no rights.”

"And no one believes you're six, Ender."

Valentine came in, her hair in a sleepy halo around her face. "Where's Mom and Dad? I'm too sick to go to school.”

"Another oral exam, huh?" Peter said.

"Shut up, Peter," said Valentine.

"You should relax and enjoy it," said Peter. "It could be worse.”

"I don't know how.”

"It could be an anal exam.”

"Hyuk hyuk," Valentine said.

This exchange would actually be perfectly appropriate (well, appropriately innappropriate) if the siblings were a few years older.

"Talking to a guy from I.F.”

Instinctively she looked at Ender. After all, for years they had expected someone to come and tell them that Ender had passed, that Ender was needed.

"That's right, look at him," Peter said. "But it might he me, you know. They might have realized I was the best of the lot after all." Peter's feelings were hurt, and so he was being a snot, as usual.

Calling someone who was an inch from murder just the day before "a snot" feels weird. Like calling Charles Manson a jackass.

Ender followed Father into the parlor. The I.F. officer rose to his feet when they entered, but he did not extend a hand to Ender.

Mother was twisting her wedding band on her finger. "Andrew," she said. "I never thought you were the kind to get in a fight.”

"The Stilson boy is in the hospital," Father said. "You really did a number on him. With your shoe, Ender, that wasn't exactly fair.”

Ender shook his head. He had expected someone from the school to come about Stilson, not an officer of the fleet. This was more serious than he had thought.

It occurs to me this is like a distorted mirror of sending a misbehaving kid to military school.

And yet he couldn't think what else he could have done.

...Got on the bus and told your parents a kid tried to beat you up?

"Do you have any explanation for your behavior, young man?" asked the officer.

Ender shook his head again. He didn't know what to say, and he was afraid to reveal himself to be any more monstrous than his actions had made him out to be. I'll take it, whatever the punishment is, he thought. Let's get it over with.

"We're willing to consider extenuating circumstances," the officer said.

I know the only reason Graff is here is because Ender's the Chosen One and shit, but now I'm imagining little Jimmy Smidt getting court-martialed for blowing spitballs at the back of Suzie Perkins' head.

"But I must tell you it doesn't look good. Kicking him in the groin, kicking him repeatedly in the face and body when he was down-- sounds like you really enjoyed it.”

"We've put brain implants in the heads of thousands of small children, but we aren't familiar with the idea of one lashing out at a bully."

"I didn't," Ender whispered.

"Then why did you do it?”

"He had his gang there," Ender said.

"So? This excuses anything?”

"No.”

"Tell me why you kept on kicking him. You had already won.”

This whole line of questioning assumes childhood brawls are usually waged with strict gentlemanly conduct. Given not even adulthood brawls are like that, I'm not sure where Card got the idea Ender's behaviour is particularly odd.

"Knocking him down won the first fight. I wanted to win all the next ones, too, right then, so they'd leave me alone."

This is such blatant nerd flattery. "You're like Ender--above spite or anger. But if the big, bad bullies pushed you hard enough, the brutally efficient violence you'd dispense would leave onlookers both awed and horrified. While they were playing on the see-saw, you were studying the groin-shot. While they were giving girls cootie-shots, you mastered clapping your hands over the other kid's ears so it really hurts. While they wasted their days at the gym acquiring badges, you cultivated SmartStars. And now the world may or may not be on fire and the aliens are ambling towards our solar system, they have the audacity to come to you for help!"

Ender couldn't help it, he was too afraid, too ashamed of his own acts: though he tried not to, he cried again. Ender did not like to cry and rarely did; now, in less than a day, he had done it three times. And each time was worse. To cry in front of his mother and father and this military man, that was shameful.

Again, this would make much more sense coming from an older kid, not a six year old.

"You took away the monitor," Ender said. "I had to take care of myself, didn't I?”

"Ender, you should have asked a grown-up for help," Father began.

But the officer stood up and stepped across the room to Ender. He held out his hand. "My name is Graff. Ender. Colonel Hyrum Graff. I'm director of primary training at Battle School in the Belt. I've come to invite you to enter the school.”

Given this is a 20th century sci-fi novel, I bet the asteroid belt is full of ornery libertarian mining clans.

After all. "But the monitor--”

"The final step in your testing was to see what would happen if the monitor comes off. We don't always do it that way, but in your case--”

"Most kids aren't the protagonists of really contrived novels."

"And I passed?”

Mother was incredulous. "Putting the Stilson boy in the hospital? What would you have done if Andrew had killed him, given him a medal?”

FORESHADOWING.

"It isn't what he did, Mrs. Wiggin. It's why." Colonel Graff handed her a folder full of papers. "Here are the requisitions. Your son has been cleared by the I.F. Selective Service. Of course we already have your consent, granted in writing at the time conception was confirmed, or he could not have been born. He has been ours from then, if he qualified.”

UN General-Secretary Kang: Abortions for all, laser-tag for others!

Father's voice was trembling as he spoke. "It's not very kind of you, to let us think you didn't want him, and then to take him after all.”

"And this charade about the Stilson boy," Mother said.

"It wasn't a charade, Mrs. Wiggin. Until we knew what Ender's motivation was, we couldn't be sure he wasn't another-- we had to know what the action meant. Or at least what Ender believed that it meant.”

Heh, now I'm imagining Stilson as a glowie with dwarfism, shaving at his desk like Kearny Zzyzwicz.

"Must you call him that stupid nickname?" Mother began to cry.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Wiggin. But that's the name he calls himself.”

Why, who knows!

Ah, but here's the rub: Ender has to consent.

Mother's weeping turned to bitter laughter. "Oh, so it's voluntary after all, how sweet!”

"For the two of you, the choice was made when Ender was conceived. But for Ender, the choice has not been made at all. Conscripts make good cannon fodder, but for officers we need volunteers.”

Clearly Card had never heard of Janissaries, or as we academics know them, non-tranny jannies.

"Officers?" Ender asked. At the sound of his voice, the others fell silent.

"Yes," said Graff. "Battle School is for training future starship captains and commodores of flotillas and admirals of the fleet.”

"Let's not have any deception here!" Father said angrily. "How many of the boys at the Battle School actually end up in command of ships!”

"Unfortunately, Mr. Wiggin, that is classified information. But I can say that none of our boys who makes it through the first year has ever failed to receive a commission as an officer. And none has served in a position of lower rank than chief executive officer of an interplanetary vessel.

"So naturally, they spend all their time playing laser-tag."

Even in the domestic defense forces within our own solar system, there's honor to be had.”

That might be a convincing argument for the Wiggins if they were a medieval knight household.

"How many make it through the first year?" asked Ender.

"All who want to," said Graff.

Not ominous at all.

Ender almost said, I want to. But he held his tongue.

It might've been nice to establish Ender had some interest in space or the military, even in a 'lasers go pew-pew' sense, but honestly, Ender doesn't really display much in the way of interests, or really anything like a personality besides being a genius and vaguely sad most of the time. He's basically the gifted-kid version of Bella Swan, a surrogate for the reader to project themselves on. See, you know I'm tough but fair because I said Bella Swan and not Zoey Redbird.

This would keep him out of school, but that was stupid, that was just a problem for a few days. It would keep him away from Peter-- that was more important, that might be a matter of life itself. But to leave Mother and Father, and above all, to leave Valentine. And become a soldier. Ender didn't like fighting. He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid.

And then Ender said 'No,' because he clearly has next to no reason to go with the strange man. Look for Nobody's Shadow in all major bookstores. Also, thank God I didn't read this book when I was a tween. I was insufferable enough.

Graff proceeds to talk to Ender in private. You know that scene in the first Harry Potter (I should really start a swear jar) book when Hagrid busts into the Hut on the Rock and tells Harry he's a wizard?

"Ender," Graff said, "if you come with me, you won't be back here for a long time. There aren't any vacations from Battle School. No visitors, either. A full course of training lasts until you're sixteen years old-- you get your first leave, under certain circumstances, when you're twelve. Believe me, Ender, people change in six years, in ten years. Your sister Valentine will be a woman when you see her again, if you come with me. You'll be strangers. You'll still love her, Ender, but you won't know her. You see I'm not pretending it's easy.”

Now imagine he went on to explain to Harry that while he most superficially resembles his father James in terms of appearence and skills, his character more meaningfully takes after his mother's.

"Mom and Daddy?”

"I know you, Ender. I've been watching the monitor disks for some time. You won't miss your mother and father, not much, not for long. And they won't miss you long, either.”

Tears came to Ender's eyes, in spite of himself. He turned his face away, but would not reach up to wipe them.

And that he and Tom Riddle are actually quite similar in many ways, but it's their differences which define them.

Also, Ender calling his father "Daddy" would be perfectly appropriate if it weren't for... the rest of his dialogue.

"They do love you, Ender. But you have to understand what your life has cost them. They were born religious, you know. Your father was baptized with the name John Paul Wieczorek. Catholic. The seventh of nine children.”

"So anyway, Harry, yer mother was actually close friends with Professor Snape, but their relationship became strained when he started falling in with a bad crowd. Dursley, would you hand me that whiteboard marker? This is where things get a bit complicated."

"Please leave."

"No."

Nine children. That was unthinkable. Criminal.

"Yes, well, people do strange things for religion. You know the sanctions, Ender-- they were not as harsh then, but still not easy. Only the first two children had a free education. Taxes steadily rose with each new child. Your father turned sixteen and invoked the Noncomplying Families Act to separate himself from his family. He changed his name, renounced his religion, and vowed never to have more than the allotted two children. He meant it. All the shame and persecution he went through as a child-- he vowed no child of his would go through it. Do you understand?”

You'd think a politician who advocated for the unpersoning of any family with more than two kids would be at a disadvantage at the polls. It's like if you mainly targeted Shakers as your base. Also, what does "seperating himself from his family" mean? Was he granted sufferage? Allowed to go to university? And is religion straight-up illegal in this world?

"He didn't want me.”

"Well, no one wants a Third anymore. You can't expect them to be glad.

Wait, were the Wiggins offered an exemption, or did the government force them to have Ender? Christ, I was joking about the Kang speech:

"Abortions for some, Handmaid's Tale style forced conception for others!"

"Yaaaay!

But your father and mother are a special case. They both renounced their religions-- your mother was a Mormon-- but in fact their feelings are still ambiguous. Do you know what ambiguous means?”

"They feel both ways.”

Now we're concered about appropriate vocabulary for talking to a six year old.

"They feel both ways.”

"They're ashamed of having come from noncompliant families. They conceal it. To the degree that your mother refuses to admit to anyone that she was born in Utah, lest they suspect. Your father denies his Polish ancestry, since Poland is still a noncompliant nation, and under international sanction because of it. So, you see, having a Third, even under the government's direct instructions, undoes everything they've been trying to do.”

I love how powerful the UN is in science fiction books. It's like Card and Larry Niven and the rest all learned about it through Left Behind.

"I know that.”

"But it's more complicated than that. Your father still named you with legitimate saints' names.

...Who the fuck thinks of Andrew, Peter, and Valentine as "saints' names." Hell, pretty much every given name in the English speaking world belongs to one saint or another. There's so many of those guys there's literally not enough space in the calandar for feast days. It's like Card heard that Mormons had a reputation for giving their kids odd names, but didn't realise which ones those were. Does he think atheists and secular people name their kids after great sinners?


"Alright, settle down kids. It's time to take roll. Albie Fish?"

"Present!"

In fact, he baptized all three of you himself as soon as he got you home after you were born. And your mother objected. They quarreled over it each time, not because she didn't want you baptized, but because she didn't want you baptized Catholic. They haven't really given up their religion.

Wait, I've guessed the twist, the buggers were created by a rogue Mormon who achieved the Celestial Kingdom and got his own planet. Now they're back for revenge!

They look at you and see you as a badge of pride, because they were able to circumvent the law and have a Third. But you're also a badge of cowardice, because they dare not go further and practice the noncompliance they still feel is right. And you're a badge of public shame, because at every step you interfere with their efforts at assimilation into normal complying society.”

"How can you know all this?”

"We monitored your brother and sister, Ender. You'd be amazed at how sensitive the instruments are. We were connected directly to your brain. We heard all that you heard, whether you were listening carefully or not. Whether you understood or not. We understand.”

"And thus, the author doesn't have to go to any effort to organically establish your family history or dynamic."

"So my parents love me and don't love me?”

"They love you. The question is whether they want you here. Your presence in this house is a constant disruption. A source of tension. Do you understand?”

I might if we'd actually seen any of that. To be charitable, I wouldn't be suprised if this arkward family exposition dump comes from the book's origin as short fiction, which naturally has far less room to breathe. I don't think is a very good excuse, though, given Card was given the chance to expand it into a novel, and this is literally a revised edition we're reading. Maybe we could've trimmed the subplot where two preteens take over the world by being the world's most popular blueticks and added some actual interactions with Ender's parents?

I'm not the one who causes tension.”

"Not anything you do, Ender. Your life itself. Your brother hates you because you are living proof that he wasn't good enough. Your parents resent you because of all the past they are trying to evade.”

From a dramatic perspective, I also find it odd how frictionless Card makes Ender's exit from the family. "Your parents only sort of love you, but it's okay, you'll get over it." Like, I get why House of Night makes it clear Zoey has no real attachment to her family, but not this book. And no, Graff isn't being misleading or lying to Ender, he's supposed to be be brutally honest here.

"Valentine loves me.”

"With all her heart. Completely, unstintingly, she's devoted to you, and you adore her. I told you it wouldn't be easy.”

Honestly, if not for Valentine, you could probably tell the same story with Ender being gestated in a tube and raised in a military creche. Hell, just make Valentine a fellow clone baby who washes out for being too nice.

"What is it like, there?”

"Hard work. Studies, just like school here, except we put you into mathematics and computers much more heavily. Military history. Strategy and tactics. And above all, the Battle Room.”

"What's that?”

"War games. All the boys are organized into armies. Day after day, in zero gravity, there are mock battles. Nobody gets hurt, but winning and losing matter. Everybody starts as a common soldier, taking orders. Older boys are your officers, and it's their duty to train you and command you in battle. More than that I can't tell you. It's like playing buggers and astronauts-- except that you have weapons that work, and fellow soldiers fighting beside you, and your whole future and the future of the human race depends on how well you learn, how well you fight.

One of my big issues with Ender's Game is how monofocused on the Battle Room. Don't get me wrong, I think close-quarters combat in freefall could be a perfectly valuleable part of the curieculum, what about any other scernario, Making landing on a hostile planetary environment, or starship combat? And before you say "That's what Command School is for" I don't mean abstractly commanding a ship from another solar system like you're playing Battlefleet Gothic, I mean actually crewing a ship during a firefight. Think an outer-space version of this:

Out of universe, it seems like having a variety of simulations and training exercises would make for more interesting set-pieces, and allow for Ender to display his battle acumen and intelligence in different ways. In-universe, it might help keep Battle-School actually train up a generation of elite military officers and not a really good laser-tag league. I almost wonder if Card might've wanted to write about the latter, but couldn't bring himself to write even the nerdiest kind of jock.

It's a hard life, and you won't have a normal childhood. Of course, with your mind, and as a Third to boot, you wouldn't have a particularly normal childhood anyway.”

Isn't he sanctioned? This is like that South Park episode where everyone acted like PC Principal screwing a co-worker was equivelant to incest.

"All boys?”

"A few girls. They don't often pass the tests to get in. Too many centuries of evolution are working against them. None of them will be like Valentine, anyway.

I assume all the girls instead test into the alphabet soup agencies.

But there'll be brothers there, Ender.”

"Also, spin-offs."

"Like Peter?”

"Peter wasn't accepted, Ender, for the very reasons that you hate him.”

"I don't hate him. I'm just--”

"Afraid of him. Well, Peter isn't all bad, you know. He was the best we'd seen in a long time. We asked your parents to choose a daughter next-- they would have anyway-- hoping that Valentine would be Peter, but milder. She was too mild. And so we requisitioned you.”

"To be half Peter and half Valentine.”

"If things worked out right.”

So, basically, this is the "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" theory of eugenics. Ender is meant to be a combination of Valentine's compassion and Peter's capacity for cold violence. We'll see how that pans out. I am amused that it's taken as a given that all the Wiggins' children will be geniuses.

"Am I?”

"As far as we can tell. Our tests are very good, Ender. But they don't tell us everything. In fact, when it comes down to it, they hardly tell us anything.

They seem to have told you a lot about the rest of the family's inner-lives.

"Ender Wiggin, if it were just a matter of choosing the best and happiest future for you, I'd tell you to stay home. Stay here, grow up, be happy. There are worse things than being a Third, worse things than a big brother who can't make up his mind whether to be a human being or a jackal. Battle School is one of those worse things. But we need you. The buggers may seem like a game to you now, Ender, but they damn near wiped us out last time. But it wasn't enough. They had us cold, outnumbered and outweaponed. The only thing that saved us was that we had the most brilliant military commander we've ever found. Call it fate, call it God, call it damnfool luck, we had Mazer Rackham.”

All this because Ender is good at maths and kicked a kid in the nuts.

"But we don't have him now, Ender. We've scraped together everything mankind could produce, a fleet that makes the one they sent against us last time seem like a bunch of kids playing in a swimming pool. We have some new weapons, too. But it might not be enough, even so. Because in the eighty years since the last war, they've had as much time to prepare as we have. We need the best we can get, and we need them fast. Maybe you're not going to work out for us, and maybe you are. Maybe you'll break down under the pressure, maybe it'll ruin your life, maybe you'll hate me for coming here to your house today. But if there's a chance that because you're with the fleet, mankind might survive and the buggers might leave us alone forever then I'm going to ask you to do it. To come with me.”

Again, we've known this kid for like, two minutes, and all he's done is recognise the universial weakspot of all male creatures. What happens if the buggers don't have nuts, Graff? What then?!

Ender had trouble focusing on Colonel Graff. The man looked far away and very small, as if Ender could pick him up with tweezers and drop him in a pocket. To leave everything here, and go to a place that was very hard, with no Valentine, no Mom and Dad.

And then he thought of the films of the buggers that everyone had to see at least once a year. The Scathing of China. The Battle of the Belt. Death and suffering and terror. And Mazer Rackham and his brilliant maneuvers, destroying an enemy fleet twice his size and twice his firepower, using the little human ships that seemed so frail and weak. Like children fighting with grown-ups. And we won.

So, the buggers clearly attacked Earth, killing many, many people... but having a third kid viewed as disgusting. It's like we want to go extinct.

"I'm afraid," said Ender quietly. "But I'll go with you.”

"Tell me again," said Graff.

"It's what I was born for, isn't it? If I don't go, why am I alive?”

"Not good enough," said Graff.

"I don't want to go," said Ender, "but I will.”

"Because otherwise, there is no plot, and Shufflepunk won't get to someday make fun of Speaker for the Dead."

Graff nodded. "You can change your mind. Up until the time you get in my car with me, you can change your mind. After that, you stay at the pleasure of the International Fleet.”

"And my windows are tinted."

Mother cried. Father held Ender tight. Peter shook his hand and said, "You lucky little pinheaded fart-eater." Valentine kissed him and left her tears on his cheek.

There was nothing to pack. No belongings to take. "The school provides everything you need, from uniforms to school supplies. And as for toys-- there's only one game.”

And if Ender was an actual six year old, that probably would've ended the book right there.

"I love you, Andrew!" Mother called.

"We'll write to you!" Father said.

And as he got into the car that waited silently in the corridor, he heard Valentine's anguished cry. "Come back to me! I love you forever!”

Apparently there's a lot of people who think these two have incestrous subtext. I look forward to finding out whether that's Card or the internet being freaks.

 

[Billy Bob Dick]

Again, we've known this kid for like, two minutes, and all he's done is recognise the universial weakspot of all male creatures. What happens if the buggers don't have nuts, Graff? What then?!

you're not even a tenth through and already you've panged the whole works. good show fren

also lol, lmao even

 

[IridiumDragon06]

Huh. You know, I think the movie did a number on me, because I apparently actually just ran roughshod over the actual intended ages of the characters and also mentally aged them up, even in the face of being outright told them.

I wonder why the ages seemed so off. The only thing that comes to mind is that living through childhood and adolescence certainly seems continuous; you are going through massive changes, but it's rare for anything outside the big puberty things for you to remember feeling and being one way yesterday and knowing that you are know feeling and being something very different. So, if the book is meant to target precocious teens and tweens, then aging the characters down flatters the "You are the same person you were then." preconception of the target audience, whether or not it was meant to.

Ender then got the shit kicked out of him the next day, because schoolchildren are immune to logic.

I mean, in my experience, applying prison logic to schoolyard interactions was actually a really good model, and I absolutely do buy that kids who are engaging in social bullying against a socially-sanctioned target would essentially scatter when that target hit back hard enough to make a counterattack costly; the kids in question have no real attachment to their ringleader and none of them want to be next, and they're not actually operating from any principle other than bullying being fun.

That being said, I could also see a fun version of this where Ender-as-written does the calculus, determines that he hasn't actually won all the future battles yet, and plans to smuggle a gun into school tomorrow, but we didn't go there yet.

The thing that does strike me as wrong about the bit was that Authority, which is clearly very authoritarian in this world, didn't descend on the unfavored Third for fighting back. Which, I think, is a shame; if the story tried to lean into Ender having fucked his life by getting what would be a crippling mark against him for daring to fight back while Third, and presented Battle School as a way out of summary expulsion, blacklisting, and juvie criminal charges, we've have another interesting angle, and at least gesture in the direction of the Theme of Ender being willing to fight and win the fights that he's not supposed to win.

Clearly Card had never heard of Janissaries, or as we academics know them, non-tranny jannies.

I mean, on one hand, they were effective, on the other hand, they were also a really good example of why you want volunteer officers, motivated from patriotism and love of country and brother rather than just enslaving the most effective people, because it turns out that an officer corps that has no loyalty or attachment to you as Sultan can turn out badly for you.

Of course, as I write this, the other big point is that Ender isn't volunteering in any meaningful way and he is, in fact, highly-motivated to just fuck everything up that isn't his sister, so maybe that was actually subtle cleverness on Card's part.