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

[Jewthulhu]

They're fartheads, Ender

That's the closest this dialogue has been to a 6-year old.

as once Ender's mother had done when he was very young, before they put the monitor in his neck, and she had put her hands on his head when she thought he was asleep, and prayed over him

Can't fault Card for not knowing stuff about psych, but up until recently it was thought that autobiographical memories like this weren't formed until 3.5, which would be after he got the monitor. It's kind of a stretch that he'd remember that.

Now he plummeted downward toward a rolling river and savage rocks; but a cloud came between him and the ground as he fell, and caught him, and carried him away.

It took him to the tower of the castle, and through the open window, bearing him in. There it left him, in a room with no apparent door in floor or ceiling, and windows looking out over a certainly fatal fall.

A moment ago he had thrown himself from a ledge carelessly; this time he hesitated.

The small rug before the fire unraveled itself into a long, slender serpent with wicked teeth.

"I am your only escape," it said. "Death is your only escape."

Honestly these tablet things feels like Card wanted to do a dream sequence without doing a dream sequence, maybe so it could be monitored? I guess I can't fault him for that, but I think it'd work better as a story element if it somehow reflected his mind-state.

Two, why the emphasis on zero-g fighting if the buggers presumably enjoy gravity on their own vessels.

The whole gimmick is being able to think in 3D, right? I think the idea is master that thinking in laser tag before applying it to commanding a ship.

I could see this being a valid observation, or the sort of thing that seems really clever from an armchair. I'll leave it to you good readers to decide.

Yes and no. Formations are important for discipline, and can also have use in battle. The obvious example is the Greek Phalanx and Roman Maniple. Modern combat also uses formations, especially when moving and defending, which can help focus fire and allow more effective responses to contact.

There is something to say about being too rigid and predictable though. You want to maintain at least some level of individual autonomy, as shit can change really quickly and you want to respond to it promptly and appropriately.

"But I'm going to become a good soldier. I won't screw up your regular drill, but I'm going to practice, and I'm going to practice with the only people who will practice with me, and that's my Launchies.”

Made me wonder, what the fuck are the teachers even doing at the school? It seems like they get no real direction, they're entirely dependent on the other students to teach them. Shouldn't they at least learn the drills and formations and whatnot from the adults?

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Made me wonder, what the fuck are the teachers even doing at the school? It seems like they get no real direction, they're entirely dependent on the other students to teach them. Shouldn't they at least learn the drills and formations and whatnot from the adults?

There's an ancient story (may or may not be true) where a king wanted to figure out the original language of humanity. So, he ordered two newborn boys to be raised in complete silence. Their caretakers were not to utter a word in their presence. The assumption is that, absent any example of language, the children would simply grow up to speak the primordial language of Adam or God. There's a few endings offered, but none of them really matter for our purposes because we know that, if this experiment were carried out, the kids would turn out severely impaired and unable to talk at all.

Card reminds me a lot of that king. He seems to think actually teaching kids shit just brainlocks them for life, and that true brilliance or innovation can only emerge spontaneously from genius tabula rasa. This of course forgets that most succesful experimentors and rule-breakers were very well versed in the meat and potatos of their fields before they started blowing our minds, man.

 

[M3xus]

It's inconsequential, so there's nothing lost spoiling it, but it's mentioned later the bugs have guns that literally roast brains inside people's skulls so they pop like popcorn, among other things. So, yeah, the laser-tag stuff is pretty silly in light of what the commanders know.

 

[Safir]

There's a fair amount of debate about whether that's developmentally appropriate, especially for really young kids.

If a kid is truly "gifted" and can learn faster, he needs a different school. "Really young" kids should start in smaller classes on the same level (e. g. a group of 4 year olds who can read and write).
A good reason for not going up a grade is boys (not girls) can supposedly benefit from starting school later and being the oldest in the class, this is said to build self-confidence and pay off later. (only works if no one else does this)

Ender wished to do such murder again. But the Giant had become part of the landscape now, and so there could be no rage against him.

He can rewind back to a living giant and kill it again. I guess he forgot lol.

I'm guessing the computer is trying to prime Ender to dehumanise his enemies.

I'm guessing Card was high on coffee.

I could see this being a valid observation, or the sort of thing that seems really clever from an armchair. I'll leave it to you good readers to decide.

<.<

Petra was especially deadly. Condor Army noticed it and took great effort to freeze her.

Andrew thinks plays/drills are bad because it makes the team predictable (lol), but it turns out these guys have goldfish memories and do no oppo research. What happened to "kill the wizard first"?

I'm having flashbacks to when I went to a trivia night with my parents as a kid and they didn't believe me that Venus was the first planet to be visited by a space-probe. This book would have ruined me.

Man, same except it was a school trivia contest and the motherfuckers didn't believe me w.r.t. what the eagle holds on the US seal. (It wouldn't have saved us, there also was a Name That Tune section made up of contemporary pop, and being mostly nerds with a couple hipsters we ate shit and finished last. Ah, school.)

In every other game that wasn't a draw, every member of the losing team was either eliminated-- totally frozen-- or disabled

This means the stupid shit with the gate is completely unnecessary. The actual win condition, honed over dozens of close matches played by supergeniuses (Salamander wins 60% and thinks they're hot shit) is "kill the other team and have 5 or more men standing". Each team has independently come to the conclusion that rushing the gate leaves the men distracted and in the open, easy prey for just one guy. Bad design is bad.

Fuck! How shit must the other commanders be?

Remember, Condor does no oppo research.
"Enemies can't disrupt your plan if you don't have one"
black guy head tap jpg

"Now, I want you all to start shooting each other as soon as the match starts. Then the other guys can't do it, see?"

I expect this to be Andrew's winning strategy.

Because children hate cake.

Children don't hate cake, but they do grow out of public birthday celebrations. Your primary school teacher might make the class sing Happy Birthday, your uni professor or drill sergeant won't.
This however is not something Andrew would miss, as he was bullied by other newborns in the hospital nursery and ever since.

Nobody knows how to cook because it's the future. Sure.

It's only been 30 years and we don't.
(Additionally, it's often considered cheap or weird to offer home cooking, unless you're a pro.)

won't blast her head open like the soldiers in the videos of the first battles with the buggers.

How and where did these battles happen? On ships? On planets? Why not bombardments or dogfights, why not high-tech "wait where the fuck did the ocean go" total destruction?

He used one of the public desks in the game room to register for an earth-gravity personal combat course during the hour immediately after breakfast.

Why is it elective?

 

[Creative Username]

This means the stupid shit with the gate is completely unnecessary. The actual win condition, honed over dozens of close matches played by supergeniuses (Salamander wins 60% and thinks they're hot shit) is "kill the other team and have 5 or more men standing". Each team has independently come to the conclusion that rushing the gate leaves the men distracted and in the open, easy prey for just one guy. Bad design is bad.

Eh, it could make sense from the standpoint that this is being used to teach strategy. The adults just put in some stupid gate bullshit to trap kids and teach them how to prioritize.

toon

Why do bad writers like using completely retarded names for random shit? Is it called "toon" because it's the FUTURE and language is different now (by specifically one or two words?) He could have just used "squads" because that's already a cool word, it has a Q for fuck's sake. And at least he could have made something up that isn't completely ridiculous! When I read "toon", it evokes images of animated slapstick comedy and not 150IQ genius grand strategy formations. Literally calling them a [mashes keys randomly and erases letters until pronounceable] "beriuba" would be better.

 

[Xerxes IX]

Why do bad writers like using completely retarded names for random shit? Is it called "toon" because it's the FUTURE and language is different now (by specifically one or two words?) He could have just used "squads" because that's already a cool word, it has a Q for fuck's sake. And at least he could have made something up that isn't completely ridiculous! When I read "toon", it evokes images of animated slapstick comedy and not 150IQ genius grand strategy formations. Literally calling them a [mashes keys randomly and erases letters until pronounceable] "beriuba" would be better.

It's short for platoon, which doesn't make it any less silly since we're talking about 6 year olds who talk about farts and butts.

 

[Creative Username]

It's short for platoon, which doesn't make it any less silly since we're talking about 6 year olds who talk about farts and butts.

OK maybe I suck at reading but it's still one of the most retarded names ever.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Armies were larger than launch groups, and the army barracks room was larger, too. It was long and narrow, with bunks on both sides; so long, in fact, that you could see the curvature of the floor as the far end bent upward, part of the wheel of the Battle School.

We're later told that the "army" in fact consists of 40 kids. If the bunks are stacked 2 high on both sides, this "gigantic" barracks is really 10 children's beds long plus whatever other stuff might be in there. If that's a significant fraction of the circumference of the "wheel", Battle School must be tiny. I'll leave it to the space nerds to say whether the centrifugal force pseudo-gravity could even work at that scale without spinning as fast as a blender.
Seriously, can Card just get the size of one thing right? Every single time he says the size of something it's utter nonsense.

The name's Spanish. Bonzo Madrid. Aqui nosotros hablamos español, Señor Gran Fedor.”

"No, just a brilliant and talented polyglot. Petra Arkanian."

Haven't we already established that everyone in The Future speaks "Standard" apart from those obstreperous Frenchmen and apparently a handful of black Muslims who held onto a word or two of Arabic? Why haven't the Spaniards been suppressed? And why is Petra a student of dead languages at age 8 or whatever she is?

And can we talk about the child nudity? This is one of those things that just sets me off. I don't care if this is supposed to be some sort of gay-ass callback to the gay-ass Spartans or what, it's repellent and there's no reason for it.
And even though Ender says Petra "still looks like a boy" (maybe she was being literal when she bragged about having balls), it's explicitly not true that everyone in Salamander is some sort of asexual child, like Michelangelo's putti decked out with ray-guns. The oldest kids are specifically called out as going through puberty and growing facial hair already. There's nothing appropriate about this even in-universe.

The well-rehearsed formations were a mistake. It allowed the soldiers to obey shouted orders instantly, but it also meant they were predictable.

This would perhaps make sense if "Bedtime For" Bonso was ordering the soldiers into battle in Napoleonic battle lines or something, but this is drill and these are kids. They need to practice the basics and learn to move around in some sort of organized fashion. As I mentioned before, you need to learn the rules before you can break them.
That aside, Clausewitz famously observed that orthodox (or even outdated) tactics aren't always bad and unorthodox or new ones aren't always good - the situation is key. I think that applies here.

"No," she said. "I want to be a commander someday, so I've got to play the game room." It was a common belief that the teachers monitored the games and spotted potential commanders there. Ender doubted it, though. Toon leaders had a better chance to show what they might do as commanders than any video player.

Little did Ender know that Petra was right. Graff is apparently watching the vidya games with a microscope, while nobody cares what the hell the students get up to in the battle room. The only teacher we've seen this entire time is the one who pops out of his observation point after one of the battles wraps up.

But I do care, thought Ender. The only reason I'm here is so that a bugger won't shoot out Valentine's eye, won't blast her head open like the soldiers in the videos of the first battles with the buggers. Won't split her head with a beam so hot that her brains burst the skull and spill out like rising bread dough, the way it happens in my worst nightmares,

Shouldn't we have gotten this back when Ender was being recruited? This is actually the most humanizing thing we've heard about him.

So is this just it? Is Ender just going to get passed from army to army and bully to bully until The Big Twist happens?

 

[Aloof Pessimism]

A kiss between boys, a comment on how pretty a young boy's lips and eyes are, little boys standing at attention and playing soldiers completely naked because their 'commander' made it a rule. What the fuck, there is more gay in this than at pride parades.

Where are the adults? Nobody reins the children in, nobody gives them orders. They have created their own weird society where the ones with power play god as they see fit. Strong Lord of the Flies vibes.

Is this--is this really a military school for gifted children to train future commanders and soldiers?

Oh, wait. The adults are 'monitoring' the naked kids. Now things make sense.

 

[Cnaiur urs Skiotha]

Damn, I actually remember liking Ender's game but I think I was like 12. The space war stuff was cool to me, I was basically pre-critical as far as its writing quality, and I fell for Card's scam and liked Ender. Now that I understand what Card did with him, Ender is bullshit of course. He has no real personality, as Whitekettle said he's a blank slate for boy readers to project on. He is constantly bullied by almost everyone and manipulated by adults, but he just stays super fucking cool the whole time. He gets to do brutal violence to bullies and aliens and act all conflicted and so morally gray and tortured bro, while really it's clear that the author is fully on his side and wants the audience to be as well. It's basically cheating to write a character so inhumanly cool, and the tradeoff is that they're exactly that, inhuman. Especially since he's supposed to be fucking SIX YEARS OLD my god. He should be lisping as he tells the fleet commanders about the Spiderman level he made in Roblox. I don't understand why Card wanted a tiny baby protagonist, maybe so he could be held even less morally culpable. When I read it at 12 I'm pretty sure I aged him up to about my own age in my head.

It's also amazing how little the plot and worldbuilding make sense now looking back as an adult. Why is there strict population control in the middle of a war with xenos, where they successfully attacked Earth and "scathed" China? Why do they think kids will make good space fleet commanders in the first place? And even if the savior has to be a child, why is Ender our one shot? Why does Ender have to be brainwashed to dehumanize his enemies when he's fighting literal non-humans, and why does he have to be tricked into genociding them? I feel like any kid who grew up in the middle of an existential war against disgusting-looking insect aliens, who until this point haven't communicated or shown anything but hostility, would just instinctively want to enact Total Bugger Death, win, and be the hero for simple and self-evident reasons.

Now that I think of it, what I dislike in Ender's Game is the same as what I disliked in fucking Dreadnought. They both sort of flailingly gesture in the direction of complex gray morality without knowing how to write it. Basically in both books we have a protagonist who goes on and on about how much it's torturing their soul and fucking up their dark twisted psyche to do all this goddamn violence! Violence is bad! Meanwhile the author is doing everything possible to reassure the audience that hey no actually this violence is justified in order to save the world from an existential threat. Not only that, but other characters start or provoke the violence, manipulate the protagonist into it, or are just written so unlikeable they seem to deserve it. The protagonist is an instinctively pure innocent but the filthy filthy world forces them to sin, specifically the sin of looking extremely cool and competent doing slick sci-fi action violence, winning, and saving the world. Wow bro so complex and thought-provoking, like was Ender even really bad for doing genocide??? He was just a kid!!!

 

[TheAmbiguousLurker]

"The player's deaths have always been sickening. I've always thought the Giant's Drink was the most perverted part of the whole mind game, but going for the eye like that-- this is the one we want to put in command of our fleets?”

'Are we sure we want someone who'll press the circle button in God of War?'

"What matters is that he won the game that couldn't be won.”

This is like when Ready Player One tries to convince you that it took months for one of the many terminal shut-ins that play games like they're addicted to crack to try going backwards in a race.

"Does it ever seem to you that these boys aren't children? I look at what they do, the way they talk, and they don't seem like little kids.”

But Cards, I thought this was how gifted children actually act when not with Adults they hate?

"But shouldn't they still act like children? They aren't normal. They act like-- history. Napoleon and Wellington. Caesar and Brutus.”

Putting an ounce of thought into your actions doesn't put you on par with History's greatest generals.

ENDER WIGGIN

Wiggin sounds like a slurr.

On impulse Ender hugged him, tight, almost as if he were Valentine. He even thought of Valentine then and wanted to go home. "I don't want to go," he said.

Alai suddenly kissed Ender on the cheek and whispered in his ear. "Salaam." Then, red faced, he turned away and walked to his own bed at the back of the barracks.

"He even kisses and says weird commie phrases like Valentine."

A boy stood there, tall and dark and slender, with beautiful black eyes and slender lips that hinted at refinement. I would follow such beauty, said something inside Ender. I would see as those eyes see.

Doesn't get much gayer than this.

Have you ever been part of a toon?

No, a toon killed his brother.

"We are the fire that will consume them, belly and bowel, head and heart, many flames of us, but one fire.”

This really is just advanced LARPing isn't it?

However, the battle was not as lopsided as it seemed. Ender noticed that Leopard was losing a lot of men, too-- their reckless tactics exposed them too much. What mattered, however, was that Salamander felt defeated

Didn't Ender just get through telling us how important having a certain number of team mates was? That recklessly throwing away your men makes it impossible to win the game and admonished Bozo for throwing away victory for the sake of pride?

This is of course deeply silly, as we now know 3D graphics just make people go on and on about how deep Fallout: New Vegas is.

Benny just found out that the game was rigged and you're laughing.

What files? Homework? Pyjama Sam saved games? Are you keeping a diary? Or this like when Mrs Krabappel and Principal Skinner bribed Bart by swapping his and Millhouse's permanent records?

"The Discord Logs have already leaked, Kakarot Alai."

 

[Creative Username]

He gets to do brutal violence to bullies and aliens and act all conflicted and so morally gray and tortured bro

Danny Tozer at age 6.

Especially since he's supposed to be fucking SIX YEARS OLD my god. He should be lisping as he tells the fleet commanders about the Spiderman level he made in Roblox. I don't understand why Card wanted a tiny baby protagonist, maybe so he could be held even less morally culpable. When I read it at 12 I'm pretty sure I aged him up to about my own age in my head.

Doubling his age would literally solve about 15% of this book's shitty character writing.

Putting an ounce of thought into your actions doesn't put you on par with History's greatest generals.

With how little competence everybody displays in this book, it probably does in Ender's Game's universe.

This really is just advanced LARPing isn't it?

Card is not only a closet homosexual, he's a closet furry.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Danny Tozer at age 6.

That's a little harsh, Danny spent most of the Dreadnought books gleefully reveling in his rage-fueled brutality. Ender at least has the decency to mope a bit after murdering NPCs in Fairyland.

Speaking of, the promised "Fairyland" in the mind game was just another screen full of jackasses trying to murder you? Is this more manipulation to turn kids into jaded nihilists or did Card just forget there was supposed to be a reward for murdering the Giant?

 

[Creative Username]

That's a little harsh, Danny spent most of the Dreadnought books gleefully reveling in his rage-fueled brutality. Ender at least has the decency to mope a bit after murdering NPCs in Fairyland.

He got meaner when he got aged, before taking the Dimensional Merge Transit Portal to the Dreadnought universe, changing his name to Danny Tozer under adoptive parents, and having his memories replaced. This is why Danny can't describe his father's screaming in detail. He then trooned out because of the combat academy's sexual abuse lunacy.

Speaking of, the promised "Fairyland" in the mind game was just another screen full of jackasses trying to murder you? Is this more manipulation to turn kids into jaded nihilists or did Card just forget there was supposed to be a reward for murdering the Giant?

More bullshit instant-death guessing game challenges are their own reward, they build character!

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Seriously, can Card just get the size of one thing right? Every single time he says the size of something it's utter nonsense.

I half expect to find out Ender is like, five foot five.

Haven't we already established that everyone in The Future speaks "Standard" apart from those obstreperous Frenchmen and apparently a handful of black Muslims who held onto a word or two of Arabic? Why haven't the Spaniards been suppressed? And why is Petra a student of dead languages at age 8 or whatever she is?

I get the impression that the idea is that non-Anglos speak their native languages alongside "Standard" (English) but that the kids learn it so early they don't have a noticeable accent when they speak it. That is, they sound American. Of course, the French are considered for outrageous for only starting English lessons at the age of four, so I guess in compliant nations, as soon as you squeeze out the kid, this guy wanders into the nursery and starts chatting up a storm:

Alternatively, I did say Petra reminded me of Maria from Uber. Maybe she just has her spooky translation powers.

And can we talk about the child nudity? This is one of those things that just sets me off. I don't care if this is supposed to be some sort of gay-ass callback to the gay-ass Spartans or what, it's repellent and there's no reason for it.

I'd be willing to overlook it with it wasn't for shit like Ender standing in awe of the naked youth before him, reflecting how he would follow those dark eyes and cruel lips to the ends of the Earth. It's like one of those statue avis on Twitter who manage to psyop themselves into "Greek love." Think the difference between Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer skinny dipping in the creek because bathing suits aren't really a thing in their time and context versus, well, this:

The core of the story is the idea that young boys and girls are selected and acquired at a very early age on account of their singing abilities. The children are taken away from normal life and trained to sing. They are given drugs that delay puberty for five years. The drugs also make them sterile. A few specially talented singers are designated as Songbirds, "Songbirds are given only to those who can truly appreciate them. We invite people to accept them. We do not take applications." Songbirds are sold to worthy wealthy clients and stay with them till their fifteenth birthday when they return to the Songhouse. Singers who fail to make the grade do not necessarily have fulfilling lives even though the Songhouse takes care of their material needs.

Ansset is seen as special and taken under the wing of Esste, a senior Songmaster. She takes him out into the real world, but only for a few days, a man remarking of the boy, "If he's willing to take off his clothes, he can make a fortune." Because of his talent, he is sent to the Emperor Mikal himself to sing. When he is aged 9, Riktors Ashen collects Ansset from the Songhouse and is captivated by his beauty, "the kind of face that melted men's hearts as readily as women's. More readily."

Well, this sounds like some real nonce shit, who wrote it--

...is a science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card.

Oh. Well.

A kiss between boys, a comment on how pretty a young boy's lips and eyes are, little boys standing at attention and playing soldiers completely naked because their 'commander' made it a rule. What the fuck, there is more gay in this than at pride parades.

Ah, you misread. The pervasive barracks nudity is apparently just part of Battle School culture, Bonzo is weird for recquiring his soldiers to be dressed outside their quarters. I'm guessing this makes Dap and Graff very upset.

And even though Ender says Petra "still looks like a boy" (maybe she was being literal when she bragged about having balls), it's explicitly not true that everyone in Salamander is some sort of asexual child, like Michelangelo's putti decked out with ray-guns. The oldest kids are specifically called out as going through puberty and growing facial hair already. There's nothing appropriate about this even in-universe.

Viewed in this light, you could speculate that Bonzo made the rule about dressing in Petra's presence to try and keep her safe from the older boys. Of course, this would require Card to give characters he doesn't like reasonable motivations for some of their actions. So, nah, Bonzo's just an arsehole, because apparently asking kids to occasionally put on some damn space pants is self-evidently dickish.

 

[Echo_Ender]

I remembered the weird gay subtext but forgot about all the creepy child nudity (Outside of Enders shower beatdown).

Man, this book didn't age well from what I remembered of it.

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Just a heads up, no updates till about Friday or Saturday. Quick trip up to the big city for mysterious buisness.

 

[Grimoire Canthari]

I also did not remember the constant child nudity. Nor did I know about that Songhouse shit. Card gets cancelled for homophobia but not pedophila?

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

I also did not remember the constant child nudity. Nor did I know about that Songhouse shit. Card gets cancelled for homophobia but not pedophila?

I suspect anyone who gazes too deep into Card's mind comes out mad and sad.

 

[m1ddl3m4rch]

I also did not remember the constant child nudity. Nor did I know about that Songhouse shit. Card gets cancelled for homophobia but not pedophila?

I think there's a thread here about all the chomos in scifi fantasy. They protect their own