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

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

I remember finding out Issac Asimov paid off newspapers to protect his nonce son.

Man, this thread about child abuse and xenocide got dark.

 

[IridiumDragon06]

Yeah, we're not dealing with regular gay here. This is advanced gay. And while in general I disdain from sneering at an author for what they write because, you know, I don't think that Card is actually an insect-person despite writing about them favorably...there's a lot of subtext in a lot of his books. Like, a lot a lot.

And, you know, I'd like to hear an actual thoughtful exploration about the limits of expected and desired initiative from soldiers working with incomplete information in the face of direct orders. On one hand, Bonzo the Clown is clearly wrong, both textually and because he's there to be wrong, but on the other hand, you really can't coordinate military action if every soldier feels free to do whatever they think is the best thing to do at the time from their specific perspective. And we do see that Bonzo is actually doing better than average despite his army being a shit-show, and we also see by implication that the focus on drill exclusively means that he's handling a simulated casualty in his leadership structure really well compared to everyone else.

How unmotivated must the rest of the armies be for this crap to be better-than-average? Do the rest of the kids get that the teachers don't give a shit about any of them but their favored pets? Shouldn't we have an attempt at general esprit de corps building? Regular school-wide assemblies and activities, and reminders that while iron sharpens iron, ultimately the rivalries between armies are training for them to all work together? I know that Ender's getting a very specific version of the Battle School Experience, but wouldn't it be better for both setting-building and twisting the knife in Ender if we got bits with him interacting with happy students actually on a conventional and successful educational track? Hell, show him and the other launchies interacting with a functional army in a kind of knight-squire relationship at first, and use that to expo-speak the Battle Room stuff, make it clear that there's a specific advancement schedule that everyone goes through, then have Ender break that rule.

I also wonder if we could have instead had Bonzo's fortunes turning significantly with Ender, and show him getting chewed out for it, and give him a source of external pressure to make it more interesting when Ender Does What Ender Does Best. As it is, he's clearly a shit commander that makes everything worse by his presence, and having him be able to keep mostly winning just makes everyone else look worse still. If he was instead meant to be not really a student, but a lesson, that rigid hierarchy and Respec May Authoritah works only until you apply pressure to the command and enforcement structure and then crumbles, then we'd get something more cohesive, as Bonzo's random flailing was shown and expected to stop working right at the time he'd feel the need to ramp it up. But since he's apparently one of the better commanders despite this crap...again, what does that say about the school as a whole?

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Yeah, we're not dealing with regular gay here. This is advanced gay. And while in general I disdain from sneering at an author for what they write because, you know, I don't think that Card is actually an insect-person despite writing about them favorably...there's a lot of subtext in a lot of his books. Like, a lot a lot.

I’m torn between suggesting we should treat Ender and company as older because that’s how Card writes them or… well, Songmaster. Songmaster really kills any drive to be charitable to Card here. Still, at least as far as I know nobody’s actually accused Card of doing anything untoward, so, I guess this question is more academic until we find out Card’s been using that free-fall plane for Epstein flights.

 

[Safir]

I don't understand why Card wanted a tiny baby protagonist, maybe so he could be held even less morally culpable.

I think it's to preemptively one-up other writers. People love child geniuses (Mozart, Okita Soji, Judit Polgar) and massdebating who was the youngest [whatever]. And there were historical officers barely out of diapers who "commanded" troops and "won" battles. Andrew is now seven and the war hasn't yet started, however ridiculous all this is he might have already been cucked by an IRL Russian princeling who'd been Colonel from birth.

Ansset is seen as special and taken under the wing of Esste

They're even lissssssssping!

 

[LoverofPi]

Maybe children's fashion was different where and when Orson grew up, but I have never seen a six year old wear a belt. Was the secret of pants elastic lost when the buggers invaded? And before you say it's the future and fashions would've changed, like fuck Orson put that much thought into it.

If a kid that age wore a belt, their mother dressed them. Only reason.

That's an oddly omniscient narrator moment for how tightly focused the perspective has been on Ender. Also, pretty sure war propaganda has made use of soldiers' relatives for centuries.

It absolutely has, and "I'm going to win this war to protect my big sis" is a PR goldmine.

BUT WHY? Zero gravity doesn't magnify your strength, you don't get extra kinetic energy out of thin air. Yes the boy might fly into the ceiling, but he won't break his limbs as if he'd flown into the ceiling on Earth. Like you'd jump higher on the Moon but you'd land just as hard as on Earth.

(edited to add: I realized I'd written this confusingly: what I mean is that even though you jump 1 ft on Earth and 6 ft on the Moon, landing on your feet afther the jump on the Moon would hurt exactly as much as it does on Earth, as in not at all, because the energy your legs and the surface must absorb is the energy you expended when jumping, determined by your muscle power.)

You technically wouldn't hurt "exactly as much" as the jump on earth, because you can spread the force of the jump out more due to the lower acceleration due to gravity, but yes, less G means less force required to move objects, means less force used.

I see two possibilities here. One, it was always possible to kill the Giant, and none of the other kids ever thought to try, not even for a laugh. Two, the computer changed the scernario to specifically allow Ender kill the Giant, which just proves the system is sophisticated enough to recognise that he's the main character of a crap sci-fi book. People debate a lot whether Kirk "beating" the Kobayashi Maru exercise really means anything, but at least he had to actively fuck with the computer to achieve his goal. This is just either Ender doing what any child would do sooner or later, or the universe rewriting itself to give him a win.

There's also the secret stupider third option, where the system isn't the one responsible and the disembodied voices are too stupid to realize they have been hacked.

I'm guessing the computer is trying to prime Ender to dehumanise his enemies. Seems a bit like overegging when his enemies are literally bug monsters from space.

That or dehumanize other humans.

This is going to be like that episode of South Park where Kyle tried to break into basketball, isn't it?

(Because that's the thing the internet remembers about that episode)

I remember Kyle's dad wanting to be a dolphin too. And how Kyle's knees were made from Garrison's Balls.

I really don't see why Peter was rejected when half the boys here seem to be his clones. Or is that actually true and they didn't want to risk their gene-stock?

I suspect they rejected Peter because he wouldn't put up with the abuse and would fuck up their plan to sculpt the perfect patsy.

Yeah, the Fleet reverse-engineered artificial gravity from the buggers. This raises a couple of questions for me. One, why go to the expense and danger of shipping kids into orbit when they could build Battle Rooms earthside. It's not like the idea never occured to Card, in the original short story, Battle School was located on Earth. Two, why the emphasis on zero-g fighting if the buggers presumably enjoy gravity on their own vessels.

As other have said, the battle room is to try and train kids to think of fully 3D maneuvering in space, so even if the ships will have cushy 1G gravity generators, they know to think about maneuvers from above and below their line of travel.

There's an unintentional message in Ender's Game: a lot of uwu soft nerds will turn into complete arseholes as soon as they're given an ounce of status.

I mean he ain't wrong there. A lot of uwu softs turn vicious the second the get a whiff of power.

Fuck! How shit must the other commanders be?

"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?"

No, that's a genius strategy according to the book.

I expect this to be Andrew's winning strategy.

It is actually part of it, yes.

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.

I mean the pseudo-gravity is a lie, as are most things about battle school. It's probably not even near the edge of the school with how little of the truth the teachers give to the kids.



The battle room is one of the parts of the book I liked when I read it back in the day. While there's a hell of a lot of bullshit surrounding it because Ender needs to be a special boy, the Zero G gymnasium with mock wargames actually sounded and still sounds like a hell of a lot of fun, really.

 

[Kosher Dill]

I suspect they rejected Peter because he wouldn't put up with the abuse and would fuck up their plan to sculpt the perfect patsy.

I'm thinking the answer is as simple as: their genius plan for planning geniuses is to make sure the Chosen One is bullied constantly (for Deep Reasons). Peter wouldn't be bullied, he'd be the bully.

 

[Xerxes IX]

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.

With all the pedo bait in this book, the main character being 6 and not a more reasonable age gets worse.

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

I would like to report that I was wrong, the big exposition dump about Ender’s family wasn’t an artefact from the short story. It didn’t give any backstory to Ender at all.

 

[m1ddl3m4rch]

During the interim, I just want to say that in Card's The Lost Gate the main character, a boy, moons an authority figure.

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

The fuck is “clant form”?

 

[m1ddl3m4rch]

The fuck is “clant form”?

I think it's that they can morph into animals.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

I didn't enjoy the novel, and the film was complete garbage - seriously , they couldn't find an actual Maori to play Mazer Rackham?
I did enjoy the books that revolved around Julian Delphiki II, although the endless Achilles-as-antagonist was annoying.

 

[Kosher Dill]

the short story

How much of what we're shoveling our way through now was in the original short story? Is the original any better, on the whole?

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

How much of what we're shoveling our way through now was in the original short story? Is the original any better, on the whole?

I'm afraid I haven't read the actual short story, I'm going by summaries. It seems like the story basically consisted of everything after Ender becomes a commander in his own right, except for anything to do with Valentine and Peter or meant to lead into Speaker of the Dead. Also, I return from the big city! So, expect more updates quite soon.

 

[Safir]

Also, I return from the big city! So, expect more updates quite soon.

> resisting the temptation to r8 l8

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Glances at the Disembodied Plane of Dialogue.

Oh, God. They're getting bigger.

"Colonel Graff, the games have always been run fairly before. Either random distribution of stars, or symmetrical.”

"Fairness is a wonderful attribute, Major Anderson. It has nothing to do with war.”

Neither does most of the shit the kids do here. I'm kind of suprised Battle School has never tried running specific scernarios to gague student responses.

"The game will be compromised. The comparative standings will become meaningless.”

"Alas.”

"The punters will be pissed!"

"It will take months. Years, to develop the new battlerooms and run the simulations.”

"That's why I'm asking you now. To begin. Be creative. Think of every stacked, impossible, unfair star arrangement you can. Think of other ways to bend the rules. Late notification. Unequal forces. Then run the simulations and see which ones are hardest, which easiest. We want an intelligent progression here. We want to bring him along.”

...Why wasn't this already standard practise for everyone at Battle School? Do the stupid fucks running the place think the buggers are going to sit down and discuss rules of engagement before the battle? Surely, surely preparing your future soldiers for unforseen or--dare I say it?--unfair scernarios is the bare minimum of your goddamn job?

"When do you plan to make him a commander? When he's eight?”

"Of course not. I haven't even assembled his army yet.”

"Oh, so you're stacking it that way, too?”

It's amazing how much this backfires from a narrative perspective. Obstensibly, all the other commanders at Battle School earned that distinction through hard work and exemplary performance. I assume Bonzo sucked off Dap, but still, you get what I mean. With Ender, meanwhile, it's been clear that Graff and Anderson decided he was their star-pupil years before he ever stepped foot in Battle School, all because of shit we never see. Fingerpainting skill, perhaps? Aside from provoking the exact of opposite of suspense, it also means Ender's rise through the ranks doesn't feel at all earned. It's like if Harry Potter made Seeker without ever touching a broom, and we were told that was going to happen in chapter one. And you know something is dire when it makes Quidditch--a sport that literally has a "protagonist" position tacked on seperate from the rest of the game--look well thought out.

"You're getting too close to the game, Anderson. You're forgetting that it is merely a training exercise.

"It's also status, identity, purpose, name; all that makes these children who they are comes out of this game. When it becomes known that the game can be manipulated, weighted, cheated, it will undo this whole school. I'm not exaggerating.”

Well, maybe you should've run this place as a military academy and not a pewee softball league!

"I know.”

"So I hope Ender Wiggin truly is the one, because you'll have defeated the effectiveness of our training method for a long time to come.”

So, no great loss then?

"If Ender isn't the one, if his peak of military brilliance does not coincide with the arrival of our fleets at the bugger homeworlds, then it doesn't really matter what our training method is or isn't.”

This isn't how militaries think, this is how hack YA authors think. Also, so far, the only clever things Ender has done have been grasp the concept of three dimensional movement, and hack a computer system that was literally designed to be easily hacked. To make a gay joke.

"I hope you will forgive me, Colonel Graff, but I feel that I must report your orders and my opinion of their consequences to the Strategos and the Hegemon.”

"Why not our dear Polemarch?”

"Everybody knows you have him in your pocket.”

Good to know the world government has a bigger Classical Greece fetish than 18th century America. I kind of hope they got all their info on Greek shit from stuff like 300, so there's a seperate governing body of deformed inbreds.

"Such hostility Major Anderson. And I thought we were friends.”

"We are. And I think you may be right about Ender. I just don't believe you, and you alone, should decide the fate of the world.”

"I don't even think it's right for me to decide the fate of Ender Wiggin.”

"So you won't mind if I notify them?”

Are we sure these conversations aren't some kind of kinky roleplay for Graff and Anderson?

"Of course I mind, you meddlesome ass. This is something to be decided by people who know what they're doing, not these frightened politicians who got their office because they happen to be politically potent in the country they came from.”

I see no evidence anyone here knows what they're doing.

"But you understand why I'm doing it.”

"Because you're such a short-sighted little bureaucratic bastard that you think you need to cover yourself in case things go wrong. Well, if things go wrong we'll all be bugger meat.

This is a struggle between two guys who are both terminally retarded, but in very different ways. Anderson only gives a shit about preserving the sanctity of a laser league tournement, but Graff is putting the fate of the entire human race in the hands of Young Sheldon. Because he kicked another six year old in the nuts.

So trust me now, Anderson, and don't bring the whole damn Hegemony down on review. What I'm doing is hard enough without them.”

...The Hegemony. The heavy-handed world government of Earth calls itself... the Hegemony. Is there going to be a dumbass twist where the Hegemony is trying to pull a Leto Atreides put humanity off centralised tyranny for the rest of time, because an obstensibly democratic government calling itself "the Hegemony" is like a Superman expy calling themselves... I don't know, "Sovereign" or something.

"Oh, is it unfair? Are things stacked against you? You can do it to Ender, but you can't take it, is that it?”

"Ender Wiggin is ten times smarter and stronger than I am. What I'm doing to him will bring out his genius. If I had to go through it myself, it would crush me.

"Ender can count to infinity in two seconds! He can benchpress Jupiter! He has a thirteen inch cock!"

Major Anderson, I know I'm wrecking the game, and I know you love it better than any of the boys who play. Hate me if you like, but don't stop me.”

Major Anderson has cameras in the barracks, doesn't he?

"Ender Wiggin, the little farthead who leads the standings, what a pleasure to have you with us." The commander of Rat Army lay sprawled on a lower bunk wearing only his desk.

Speaking of which. Man, Orson kind of backloaded all the child nudity, didn't he. Also, I know the "desks" are basically oversized iPads, but I'm just picturing a kid lying with one of these:

...open over his crotch.

There could not here been two more opposite armies than Salamander and Rat. The room was rumpled, cluttered, noisy. After Bonzo Ender had thought that indiscipline would be a welcome relief. Instead, he found that he had come to expect quiet and order, and the disorder here made him uncomfortable.

Salamander didn't seem particularly quiet.

"We doing OK, Ender Bender. I Rose de Nose, Jewboy extraordinaire, and you ain't nothin but a pinheaded pinprick of a goy. Don't you forget it.”

This is like if Cartman tried to write self-insert fanfic while posing as Kyle.

Since the I.F. was formed the Strategos of the military forces had always been a Jew. There was a myth that Jewish generals didn't lose wars.

You'd think the fact that it's the Republic of Israel and not the Kingdom of Judea would put rest to that idea.

And so far it was still true. It made any Jew at the Battle School dream of being Strategos, and conferred prestige on him from the start. It also caused resentment. Rat Army was often called the Kike Force, half in parody of Mazer Rackham's Strike Force.

I was going to mock Card for assuming everyone would be as casually racist two hundred or so years in the future as they were in 1985, and in the same ways, but this is still less anti-Semitic than most of lefty Twitter October of 2023.

There were many who liked to remember that during the Second Invasion, even though an American Jew, as President, was Hegemon of the alliance, an Israeli Jew was Strategos in overall command of I.F. defense, and a Russian Jew was Polemarch of the fleet, it was Mazer Rackham, a little-known, twice-court-martialled, half-Maori New Zealander whose Strike Force broke up and finally destroyed the bugger fleet in the action around Saturn.

See, if we'd fielded Takia Waititi against the buggers, we could've had both! I know Love and Thunder was pretty lame, but What We Do in the Shadows is still fire.

If Mazer Rackham could save the world, then it didn't matter a bit whether you were a Jew or not, people said.

But it did matter, and Rose the Nose knew it. He mocked himself to forestall the mocking comments of anti-semites-- almost everyone he defeated in battle became, at least for a time, a Jew-hater

You could forge a national identity out of that. I will note that apparently in this future, Islam is so stigmatised that the Arabic equivelent of "Good to see you" is taboo, but Jews are revered and celebrated. This is what happens when weird Christian philosemitism loops all the back around to triple brackets.

"I took you on, goy, because I didn't want people to think I only win because I got great soldiers. I want them to know that even with a little puke of a soldier like you I can still win. We only got three rules here. Do what I tell you and don't piss in the bed.”

Ender nodded. He knew that Rose wanted him to ask what the third rule was. So he did.

"That was three rules. We don't do too good in math here.”

The message was clear. Winning is more important than anything.

That doesn't follow at all! Card might as well have written "The message was clear. Spiders would throw a big dance for us every Friday night."

"Your practice sessions with half-assed little Launchies are over, Wiggin. Done. You're in a big boys' army now. I'm putting you in Dink Meeker's toon. From now on, as far as you're concerned, Dink Meeker is God.”

Why does everyone at this school hate the concept of practise?

"Then who are you?”

Dog? An American football player?

"The personnel officer who hired God." Rose grinned.

Trust Card to pick the least funny answer.

"And you are forbidden to use your desk again until you've frozen two enemy soldiers in the same battle.

Don't they do schoolwork on those? This is like telling a primary schooler they aren't allowed to hold a pencil till they win a game of dodgeball.

I hear you're a genius programmer. I don't want you screwing around with my desk.

Again, we were outright told they let Ender do that. To return to the Quidditch analogy, this is like if Dumbledore was remotely controlling Harry's broom, but we were still meant to be impressed by his flying skills.

Everybody erupted in laughter. It took Ender a moment to understand why. Rose had programmed his desk to display-- and animate-- a bigger-than-life sized picture of male genitals, which waggled back and forth as Rose held the desk on his naked lap. This is just the sort of commander Bonzo would trade me to, thought Ender. How does a boy who spends his time like this win battles?

No military commander has ever had a sense of humour. Anyway, we're then introduced to toon leader Dink Meeker, because everyone and everything in Battle School has a stupid fucking name.

"I've watched your practice sessions with the Launchies. I think you show some promise. Bonzo is stupid and I wanted you to get better training than Petra could give you. All she can do is shoot.”

And create catylist using the halo-effect.

"I'm not going to quit my freetime practice sessions.”

"I don't want you to quit them.”

"Rose the Nose does.”

"Rose the Nose can't stop you. Likewise, he can't stop you from using your desk.”

"I thought commanders could order anything.”

Ah, didn't Ender himself point out that Bonzo couldn't tell him what to do in his free periods?

"They can order the moon to turn blue, too, but it doesn't happen. Listen, Ender, commanders have just as much authority as you let them have. The more you obey them, the more power they have over you.”

"Don't let the man tell you when and where you can strut naked!"

"What's to stop them from hurting me?" Ender remembered Bonzo's blow.

"I thought that was why you were taking personal attack classes.”

"Which for some reason aren't a part of the curiculem in this school for nascent super-soldiers."

"You've really been watching me, haven't you?”

Dink didn't answer.

Seems to be the only thing anyone does around here.

"I don't want to get Rose mad at me. I want to be part of the battles now, I'm tired of sitting out till the end.”

"Your standings will go down.”

This time Ender didn't answer.

"Listen, Ender, as long as you're part of my toon, you're part of the battle.”

"We're produced by Genndy Tartakovsky."

Ender soon learned why. Dink trained his toon independently from the rest of Rat Army, with discipline and vigor; he never consulted with Rose, and only rarely did the whole army maneuver together. It was as if Rose commanded one army, and Dink commanded a much smaller one that happened to practice in the battleroom at the same time.

Dink started out the first practice by asking Ender to demonstrate his feet-first attack position. The other boys didn't like it. "How can we attack lying on our backs?" they asked.

To Ender's surprise, Dink didn't correct them, didn't say, "You aren't attacking on your back, you're dropping downward toward them." He had seen what Ender was doing, but he had not understood the orientation that it implied. It soon became clear to Ender that even though Dink was very, very good, his persistence in holding onto the corridor gravity orientation instead of thinking of the enemy gate as downward was limiting his thinking.

Literally the only form of training these children do is zero-gravity laser-tag, and Ender's the only fucker here who's figured out what zero-gravity means. You know the writing is crap when the only way the author can make their protagonist look smart is lobotmising the rest of the cast.

They practiced attacking an enemy-held star. Before trying Ender's feet-first method, they had always gone in standing up, their whole bodies available as a target. Even now, though, they reached the star and then assaulted the enemy from one direction only; "Over the top," cried Dink, and over they went. To his credit, he then repeated the exercise, calling, "Again, upside down," but because of their insistence on a gravity that didn't exist, the boys became awkward when the maneuver was under, as if vertigo seized them.

Remember, most of these kids have been doing this shit for years.

They hated the feet-first attack. Dink insisted that they use it. As a result, they hated Ender. "Do we have to learn how to fight from a Launchy?" one of them muttered, making sure Ender could hear. "Yes," answered Dink. They kept working.

And they learned it. In practice skirmishes, they began to realize how much harder it was to shoot an enemy attacking feet first. As soon as they were convinced of that, they practiced the maneuver more willingly.

"I thought I told you not to use your desk." Rose the Nose stood by Ender's bunk.

Ender did not look up. "I'm completing the trigonometry assignment for tomorrow.”

Rose bumped his knee into Ender's desk. "I said not to use it.”

Ender set the desk on his bunk and stood up. "I need trigonometry more than I need you.”

I would joke about Ender somehow making his own paper and writing implements to do his schoolwork with, but that would actually be impressive. Can't have that.

Rose was taller than Ender by at least forty centimeters. But Ender was not particularly worried. It would not come to physical violence, and if it did, Ender thought he could hold his own. Rose was lazy and didn't know personal combat.

We teach kids to command starships against bug-monsters with weapons that literally boil your brains, but learning how to actually fight is an elective.

"You're going down in the standings, boy," said Rose.

"I expect to. I was only leading the list because of the stupid way Salamander Army was using me.”

"Stupid? Bonzo's strategy won a couple of key games.”

"Bonzo's strategy wouldn't win a salad fight. I was violating orders every time I fired my gun.”

Rose hadn't known that. It made him angry. "So everything Bonzo said about you was a lie. You're not only short and incompetent, you're insubordinate, too.”

So, we've met two commanders, and both of them agree that ordering a soldier to float around like a lump out of pure spite is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Remember when Battle School was meant to be made up of literally the smartest, most driven kids on the planet? But hey, maybe Rose is better in the actual Battle Room.

"Shivering? Trembling? Don't wet your pants, little Launchy." Rose hooked a finger over the butt of Ender's gun and pulled him to the forcefield that hid the battleroom from view. "We'll see how well you do now, Ender. As soon as that door opens, you jump through, go straight ahead toward the enemy's door.”

Suicide. Pointless, meaningless self-destruction. But he had to follow orders now, this was battle, not school. For a moment Ender raged silently; then he calmed himself.

Oh, wait, he immediately throws away a soldier in a fit of pique. Rat is second place in the rankings. I really want to see who's last. Going by what we've seen, they probably go into battle nude and attempt to navigate the room via strategic flatulence. Anyway, Ender proceeds to ice a bunch of the other team in the precious few seconds before he's out of the game.

Dink Meeker began to practice instant emergence from the corridor-- Ender's attack on the enemy while they were still coming out of the door had been devastating. "If one man can do that much damage, think what a toon can do."

I don't know, all the enemy's brothers live back on Earth.

"Well, now you know why I'm not a commander.”

Ender had wondered.

"Actually, they promoted me twice, and I refused.”

"Refused?”

"They took away my old locker and bunk and desk, assigned me to a commander cabin and gave me an army. But I just stayed in the cabin until they gave in and put me back into somebody else's army.”

Ah, so Dink is the Angron of Ender's Game, except it's everyone else who gets the Butcher's Nails.

"Why?”

"Because I won't let them do it to me. I can't believe you haven't seen through all this crap yet, Ender. But I guess you're young. These other armies, they aren't the enemy. It's the teachers, they're the enemy. They get us to fight each other, to hate each other. The game is everything. Win win win, it amounts to nothing. We kill ourselves, go crazy trying to beat each other, and all the time the old bastards are watching us, studying us, discovering our weak points, deciding whether we're good enough or not.

I'm sure this spirit of retarded social Dawrinism will ensure all these commanders work great together in an actual military campaign.

Well, good enough for what? I was six years old when they brought me here. What the hell did I know? They decided I was right for the program, but nobody ever asked me if the program was right for me.”

"So why don't you go home?”

Because it's a military training centre run by a vaguely facist world-state, not a summer camp?

Dink smiled crookedly. "Because I can't give up the game." He tugged at the fabric of his flash suit, which lay on the bunk beside him. "Because I love this.”

It's a shame there aren't any team sports on Earth that greatly resemble the Battle Room. Actually, with what the worldbuilding has been like so far, they probably did ban all sports.

"So why not be a commander?”

Dink shook his head. "Never. Look what it does to Rosen. The boy's crazy. Rose de Nose. Sleeps in here with us instead of in his cabin. Why? Because he's scared to be alone, Ender. Scared of the dark.”

"Rose?”

"But they made him a commander and so he has to act like one. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's winning, but that scares him worst of all, because he doesn't know why he's winning, except that I have something to do with it. Any minute somebody could find out that Rosen isn't some magic Israeli general who can win no matter what. He doesn't know why anybody wins or loses. Nobody does.”

It is really hard to imagine a Battle School graduate in an actual military role.

"It doesn't mean he's crazy, Dink.”

"I know, you've been here a year, you think these people are normal. Well, they're not. We're not. I look in the library, I call up books on my desk. Old ones, because they won't let us have anything new, but I've got a pretty good idea what children are, and we're not children.

I could see a kid being stupid enough to think they aren't really a child because they don't relate to... I don't know, The Great Brain, but this is meant to be really insightful and deep. Also, not sure why an oppressive government would specifically ban kids from reading stuff from after they took power.

Children can lose sometimes, and nobody cares. Children aren't in armies, they aren't commanders, they don't rule over forty other kids, it's more than anybody can take and not get a little crazy.”

You know, the Power Pack didn't talk like this, and those kids witnessed a pogrom before any of them had pubes.

Ender tried to remember what other children were like, in his class at school, back in the city. But all he could think of was Stilson.

To be fair, most of the kids you've met have been clones of the guy.

"I had a brother. Just a normal guy. All he cared about was girls. And flying. He wanted to fly. He used to play ball with the guys. A pickup game, shooting balls at a hoop, dribbling down the corridors until the peace officers confiscated your ball. We had a great time. He was teaching me how to dribble when I was taken.”

Oh shit, they really do hate sports that aren't played by often-nude space-kids.

Ender remembered his own brother, and the memory was not fond.

Dink misunderstood the expression on Ender's face. "Hey, I know, nobody's supposed to talk about home. But we came from somewhere. The Battle School didn't create us, you know. The Battle School doesn't create anything. It just destroys. And we all remember things from home. Maybe not good things, but we remember and then we lie and pretend that-- look, Ender, why is that nobody talks about home, ever? Doesn't that tell you how important it is? That nobody even admits that-- oh hell.”

I think Card couldn't be fucked to make up any backstories, to be honest.

"No, it's all right," Ender said. "I was just thinking about Valentine. My sister.”

"I wasn't trying to make you upset.”

"It's OK. I don't think of her very much, because I always get like this.”

"That's right, we never cry. Christ, I never thought of that. Nobody ever cries. We really are trying to be adult. Just like our fathers. I bet your father was like you. I bet he was quiet and took it, and then busted out and--”

One thing Card failed to predict: soyboys. Ender's great-grandfathers probably looked like this:

"I'm not like my father.”

"So maybe I'm wrong. But look at Bonzo, your old commander. He's got an advanced case of Spanish honor. He can't allow himself to have weaknesses. To be better than him, that's an insult. To be stronger, that's like cutting off his balls. That's why he hates you, because you didn't suffer when he tried to punish you.

Ender during the Bonzo chapter:

"They think they got you on ice. Don't let them.”

"But that's what I came for," Ender said. "For them to make me into a tool. To save the world.”

"I can't believe you still believe it.”

"Believe what?”

"The bugger menace. Save the world. Listen. Ender, if the buggers were coming back to get us, they'd be here. They aren't invading again. We beat them and they're gone.

"Admittedly, the timeline is pretty vague."

"All from the First and Second Invasions. Your grandparents weren't born yet when Mazer Rackham wiped them out. You watch. It's all a fake. There is no war, and they're just screwing around with us.”

"But why?”

"Because as long as people are afraid of the buggers, the I.F. can stay in power, and as long as the I.F. is in power, certain countries can keep their hegemony. But keep watching the vids, Ender. People will catch onto this game pretty soon, and there'll be a civil war to end all wars. That’s the menace, Ender, not the buggers. And in that war, when it comes, you and I won't be friends. Because you're American, just like our dear teachers. And I am not.”

The sad thing is, that actually makes more sense than the actual twist.

They went to the mess hall and ate, talking about other things. But Ender could not stop thinking about what Dink had said. The Battle School was so enclosed, the game so important in the minds of the children, that Ender had forgotten there was a world outside. Spanish honor. Civil war. Politics. The Battle School was really a very small place, wasn't it?

Its physical dimensions are very unclear and probably nonsensical, yes.

But Ender did not reach Dink's conclusions. The buggers were real. The threat was real. The I.F. controlled a lot of things, but it didn't control the videos and the nets. Not where Ender had grown up. In Dink's home in the Netherlands, with three generations under Russian hegemony, perhaps it was all controlled, but Ender knew that lies could not last long in America. So he believed.

BAHAHAHAHAH. Also, you're part of a world-state, you dumb fuck.

Believed, but the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

Thank you for telling me Ender became wise, Card. I never would've guessed otherwise.

There weren't as many boys at the evening practice, not by half.

"Where's Bernard?" asked Ender.

Alai grinned. Shen closed his eves and assumed a look of blissful meditation.

"Haven't you heard?" said another boy, a Launchy from a younger group. "Word's out that any Launchy who comes to your practice sessions won't ever amount to anything in anybody's army. Word's out that the commanders don't want any soldiers who've been damaged by your training.”

"We'd much rather have completely untrained small children."

They went on with practice. About a half hour into it, when they were practicing throwing off collisions with frozen soldiers, several commanders in different uniforms came in. They ostentatiously took down names.

"Hey," shouted Alai. "Make sure you spell my name right!”

The next night there were even fewer boys. Now Ender was hearing the stories little Launchies getting slapped around in the bathrooms, or having accidents in the mess hall and the game room, or getting their files trashed by older boys who had broken the primitive security system that guarded the Launchies' desks.

Is it bad it took me a moment for me to realise that "accidents" didn't mean "pissing themselves?" I mean, they are six. Also, remember, the security system is designed to be easily hackable for... reasons.

Ender remembered what Dink had said. The game was trivial compared to the whole world. Why should anybody give every night of his life to this stupid, stupid game?

Fuck you, Card, I'm finishing your dumb book. Anyway, later on, a bunch of older kids invade a practise session to attack the Launchies.

There was no leader, as far as Ender knew, and these boys were a lot bigger than him.

Still, he had learned some things about weightshifting in personal combat class, and about the physics of moving objects. Game battles almost never got to hand-to-hand combat-- you never bumped into an enemy that wasn't frozen. So in the few seconds he had, Ender tried to position himself to receive his guests.

Fortunately, they knew as little about nullo fighting as he did, and the few that tried to punch him found that throwing a punch was pretty ineffective when their bodies moved backward just as quickly as their fists moved forward.

Nullo-fighting is pretty difficult. Kicking them in the groin does nothing.

"Hey Ender!" shouted one of the older boys as Ender left the battleroom. "You nothing, man! You be nothing!”

"My old commander Bonzo," said Ender. "I think he doesn't like me.”

Ender checked the rosters on his desk that night. Four boys turned up on medical report. One with bruised ribs, one with a bruised testicle, one with a torn ear, and one with a broken nose and a loose tooth.

You could do a pretty decent drinking game with how often this book mentions little boy groins.

The cause of injury was the same in all cases:

ACCIDENTAL COLLISION IN NULL G

If the teachers were allowing that to turn up on the official report, it was obvious they didn't intend to punish anyone for the nasty little skirmish in the battleroom. Aren't they going to do anything? Don't they care what goes on in this school?

No.

Since he was back to the barracks earlier than usual, Ender called up the fantasy game on his desk. It had been a while since he last used it. Long enough that it didn't start him where he had left off. Instead, he began by the Giant's corpse. Only now, it was hardly identifiable as a corpse at all, unless you stood off a ways and studied it. The body had eroded into a hill, entwined with grass and vines. Only the crest of the Giant's face was still visible, and it was white bone, like limestone protruding from a discouraged, withering mountain.

Ender did not look forward to fighting with the wolf-children again,

A shame this isn't some kind of futuristic AI-driven game that can generate literally infinite scernarios for you explore.

but to his surprise they weren't there. Perhaps, killed once, they were gone forever. It made him a little sad.

Why? Speaking of murder, Ender kills the snake this time:

Ender picked it up and shook it, until it unwove itself and the pattern in the rug was gone. Then, still dragging the snake behind him, he began to look for a way out.

Instead, he found a mirror. And in the mirror he saw a face that he easily recognized. It was Peter, with blood dripping down his chin and a snake's tail protruding from a corner of his mouth.

Ender shouted and thrust his desk from him. The few boys in the barracks were alarmed at the noise, but he apologized and told them it was nothing.

Man, imagine trying to do homework, or play a game, or indulge in Grecian athletic nudity with this little pissant gasping and screaming all the time over Breath of the Wild.

Ender didn't go back to the fantasy game. But it lived in his dreams. He kept remembering how it felt to kill the snake, grinding it in, the way he tore the ear off that boy, the way he destroyed Stilson, the way he broke Bernard's arm. And then to stand up, holding the corpse of his enemy, and find Peter's face looking out at him from the mirror, This game knows too much about me. This game tells filthy lies. I am not Peter. I don't have murder in my heart.

And then the worse fear, that he was a killer, only better at it than Peter ever was; that it was this very trait that pleased the teachers. It's killers they need for the bugger wars. It's people who can grind the enemy's face into the dust and spatter their blood all over space.

Who knew the child soldier school would prize violence?

Well, I’m your man. I'm the bloody bastard you wanted when you had me spawned. I'm your tool, and what difference does it make if I hate the part of me that you most need? What difference does it make that when the little serpents killed me in the game, I agreed with them, and was glad.

Oh, shut up, you love it.

Next time... politics.

 

[Echo_Ender]

one with a bruised testicle

Even in Zero G, Enders pulls off his signature move.

 

[Safir]

And you know something is dire when it makes Quidditch--a sport that literally has a "protagonist" position tacked on seperate from the rest of the game--look well thought out.

Quidditch could've been made more interesting if everyone could chase the Snitch, not just the protagonist, so the teams could decide to dedicate more players to capture-the-Snitch and bet on catching it sooner than the opposing team racks up more of a score difference than the Snitch can make up for. I looked to see if a rule exists, and I shit you not, all of the following is true:

At the 2014 Quidditch World Cup, the Snitch flew into a Haitian Beater [this is a position] 's sleeve and got stuck in his underwear. Yes, one of the Seekers [this is the protagonist position] was supposed to get it out or the game wouldn't ever end. Unfortunately for Haiti, the Snitch-in-underwear guy just knocked out their own [male] Seeker by accident, and would have to avoid the Brazilian [also male] Seeker's attempts at molestation until Haiti's woke up and gave him a handy. Instead, the Beater took it out himself with his hand, and by this committed "Snitchnip", and the Haitian team was disqualified.

This is still less stupid than Ender's Game.

(I swear I'm not a Harry Potter fan. @Ewan McGregor bumped the Harry Potter thread and I went there to rant about bad party design. Ewan look here, this shit is amazing.)

Good to know the world government has a bigger Classical Greece fetish than 18th century America. I kind of hope they got all their info on Greek shit from stuff like 300, so there's a seperate governing body of deformed inbreds.

Eckshually, having read the post further, I don't mind this. It doesn't appear there's a world government, or at least the world government is pretending there isn't a world government. Enemy powers (or left hand puppet and right hand puppet), allied for the purpose of making war on the alien invaders, picked the most neutral term they could. China got raped by buggers, and the US and Russia at least (who else is there?) admire classical Greece, which is presumably not a world power. Do we call the head of the alliance President or Secretary General or Inkosi or Sultan or what?

...The Hegemony. The heavy-handed world government of Earth calls itself... the Hegemony.

Eckshually I don't mind this either. It's this racist peculiarity of languages to give negative connotations to foreign words. Torrentfreak has a hardon for the expression "copyright tsar". Since Current Year, you've probably all been sick of hearing "real-estate mogul", and there are of course despot, tyrant and dictator. It makes sense for greekaboos to #hashtag #reclaim the word.

his persistence in holding onto the corridor gravity orientation instead of thinking of the enemy gate as downward was limiting his thinking.

How are they persisting in doing it in battle? Isn't holding onto the corridor gravity orientation much more difficult (and pointless)? It's hard to "think in 3d" when you're looking at it from the outside and have to imagine things from the avatar's point of view. It's not hard to think "up is headwise, down is legwise" when you're the one suspended in zero g.

certain countries can keep their hegemony.

In Dink's home in the Netherlands, with three generations under Russian hegemony

Ok so Russia exists and is a world power and an enemy of the US. Why are the officers all American and English-speaking? Why does a Russian citizen/subject serve them? How come they rolled into town and kidnapped a Russian citizen when he was dribbling in peace?
Also the editor is asleep at the wheel, Card just introduced The Hegemony as a proper noun, then uses the lowercase word at least twice in the same chapter.

"We'd much rather have completely untrained small children."

To be fair, I sometimes see job ads for Python programmers which say "Java experience: ideally none".

Is it bad it took me a moment for me to realise that "accidents" didn't mean "pissing themselves?" I mean, they are six.

Andrew's been there a year (per Dink) so they're all seven now.

 

[TheAmbiguousLurker]

"The game will be compromised. The comparative standings will become meaningless.”

What isn't already meaningless in these games?

"If Ender isn't the one, if his peak of military brilliance does not coincide with the arrival of our fleets at the bugger homeworlds, then it doesn't really matter what our training method is or isn't.”

"God help us all if a highscore in Time Crisis isn't enough to beat the Buggers."

"Such hostility Major Anderson. And I thought we were friends.”

I was gonna make a Mass Effect joke, but now it's hitting me how much these opening narrations remind me of Mass Effect 2's opening with the Illusive Man and Miranda feeding trailer lines to hype up Shepard.

"Of course I mind, you meddlesome ass. This is something to be decided by people who know what they're doing, not these frightened politicians who got their office because they happen to be politically potent in the country they came from.”

You'd prefer Politicians who got their office because they weren't good at politics where they come from?

"Ender Wiggin is ten times smarter and stronger than I am. What I'm doing to him will bring out his genius. If I had to go through it myself, it would crush me."

Gaff would never survive 'Are you smarter than a ten year old?'

Major Anderson, I know I'm wrecking the game, and I know you love it better than any of the boys who play. Hate me if you like, but don't stop me.”

Come on, Gaff. The games are all Anderson has after Saren got him kicked off the line up to be a Spectre and Kai Leng pissed in his cornflakes.

Since the I.F. was formed the Strategos of the military forces had always been a Jew. There was a myth that Jewish generals didn't lose wars.

Wait, I thought they were saying Jews and other religions were so repressed in this society that Ender's friend saying jewish phrases to him was unknown and 'forbidden'? Now the Jews have a big rep for being generals and always getting a certain position?

"But they made him a commander and so he has to act like one. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's winning, but that scares him worst of all, because he doesn't know why he's winning, except that I have something to do with it. Any minute somebody could find out that Rosen isn't some magic Israeli general who can win no matter what. He doesn't know why anybody wins or loses. Nobody does.”

Because Battle School apparently doesn't teach basic strategic and combat analysis.

but to his surprise they weren't there. Perhaps, killed once, they were gone forever. It made him a little sad.

Didn't he die last time specifically because they respawned?

 

[Xerxes IX]

Wait, I thought they were saying Jews and other religions were so repressed in this society that Ender's friend saying jewish phrases to him was unknown and 'forbidden'? Now the Jews have a big rep for being generals and always getting a certain position?

It was an Arabic phrase that was treated as taboo. Judaism seems to be the only religion allowed in some capacity, probably because the ethno- part of ethnoreligious group got emphasized, while Arabs get the opposite treatment.