I'm just now reading Shadow Puppets and have been thinking about Achilles. I like that Card set up a child villian, however improbable. The character gave some nice tension in Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon. However, I find I'm growing tired of this character in Shadow Puppets as I'm finding him too contrived and just a little too convenient.
I see it that without Peter bringing Achilles into the picture (he could have more reasonably left Achilles to rot in the Chinese prisons), the story would have lost its personal tension. This forces Bean and Petra to go to ground, together, Bean's parents to vacate the premesis, and to leave Peter and his parents essentially alone with Achilles, a pathological killer.
Furthermore, it doesn't look like the same sort of attention is being paid to Achilles personality other than to reinforce his amoral behavior and his pathology. So far, Achilles is very two dimensional. As I'm only about a quarter of the way into Shadow Puppets, I'm still hopeful that Achilles will become more (even more villianous is okay, but I hope for a three dimensional character).
Posted by Ksig (Member # 5625) on :
He's not two dimensional! OSC portrays him as wanting everything to go his way. That's what every wants. He has very human emotions, not just evil killing machine. Read the rest of the book, then comments please.
please don't take my comments the wrong way
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
What does it say about me that I find Achilles more understandable than most other characters in the series. But I did realize when I was a college freshman that any philosophy could work if everyone went along with their part.
Posted by unohoo (Member # 5490) on :
Sorry to say, Ksig, that I still find Achilles to be two-dimensional, or a really thin three dimensional character. We never saw anything from Achilles POV, and since he was a pivotal character I really feel that he deserved more ink.
However, at this point I'm really more interested in Bean's motivations for consenting to have children which I've gone into some detail in another post titled More Shadow Puppet questions (which at present is just a few posts down from this one. Presently, it is a dialogue between Hobbes and me. I'd love to learn about other theories.
Posted by Fitz (Member # 4803) on :
quote: I like that Card set up a child villian, however improbable.
More improbable than a child hero saving Earth by committing genocide? It's all about suspension of disbelief. As far as I'm concerned, Achilles is as real as any other character in the Enderverse.
Edit: Or should I say xenocide?
[ September 28, 2003, 02:05 AM: Message edited by: Fitz ]
Posted by Julie (Member # 5580) on :
Even if there wasn't anything directly from Achilles's point of view, (though for some reason I thought there was at least a tiny bit here and there) I think there are some conversations in which Achilles's personality and reasoning come through well. It seemed to me that Achilles was a very 3D character.
Posted by wieczorek (Member # 5565) on :
I agree whole-heartedly that Achilles is a believable character. Posted by unohoo (Member # 5490) on :
Let me clarify what I'm trying to say here. First, I am willing to suspend a certain amount of logic to go along with the entire story line that children could be both the saviors and scourges of the earth for the sake of a good story, which I feel that the seven (so far) books are. I also find Achilles a completely believable character, I never said otherwise. I was only lamenting that there wasn't more attention paid to this character. I wanted the books to last longer.
(Edited to correct a couple of spelling and gramatical errors which have to be blatant if I can see them.)
[ September 28, 2003, 04:59 PM: Message edited by: unohoo ]
Posted by pwiscombe (Member # 181) on :
I have to agree with some of the previous - negative - comments about Achilles.
I thought his character was quite consistant / believable in Ender's Shadow. And at the end of Ender's Shadow, (spoiler warning...) . . . when he is released from prison by the Russkies, it was solely because he was pretty much the only Battle School student who wasn't under Fleet control. He was a natural born leader and intelligent enough to get into battle school, but nothing that special.
Suddenly, in Shadow of the Hegemon, Achilles is the 2nd most intelligent person on Earth behind Bean and is the greatest criminal mastermind the world has ever seen (sorry Lex Luthor). He is single handedly able to manipulate the entire political structure multiple nations. He is the only person standing in the way of Peter becoming a real Hegemon.
It just seems very out of character to me. He wasn't all that in Ender's Shadow. Just a thug who Poke's crew could take down pretty easily.
I am also pretty tired of this character. I actually find the obsession that Bean has with him the most boring part of this series, and skim over those parts to get to the good parts of the story.
Posted by unohoo (Member # 5490) on :
quote: when he is released from prison by the Russkies, it was solely because he was pretty much the only Battle School student who wasn't under Fleet control. He was a natural born leader and intelligent enough to get into battle school, but nothing that special.
Suddenly, in Shadow of the Hegemon, Achilles is the 2nd most intelligent person on Earth behind Bean and is the greatest criminal mastermind the world has ever seen (sorry Lex Luthor). He is single handedly able to manipulate the entire political structure multiple nations. He is the only person standing in the way of Peter becoming a real Hegemon.
This is one reason why I felt that Achilles did not get enough coverage. While I didn't think that Achilles was portrayed as "second" only to Bean in intelligence, there was not enough explanation as to how he managed to get into the positions of power that he did. From Ender's shadow and Shadow of the Hegemony we had to assume that he was able to connive his way to power from essentially powerless positions. He was portrayed as socially clever (much like some identity thieves and hackers of today) but we don't see enough of what he did to get to where he got.
And why was the way his name was pronounce made so significant? It seemed a small point and small trap compared to everything else that was going on.
Additionally, I wanted to see more interaction between Peter and his parents. I thought his realization of the danger he was in and his eating of humble pie when he and his parents escaped the compound needed more depth. It happened too quickly, without the requisite background that could have explained how he was learning to trust his parents' intelligence in addition to their good intentions as far as Peter went.
Posted by poly_biosis (Member # 5773) on :
Achilles wasn't the smartest, he just thought of things no one else thought. Surprised his enemies and he had a golden voice, which explained why he had so much power over the grown ups. But just what graff had said when peter was in battle school, he is not that much of a genius he just exploits his enemies with things they don't expect.
Posted by Grandma Edie (Member # 5771) on :
Question at Issue: Was Achilles smart or stupid? Answer: Yes, and Yes.
Achilles brilliance is no more unbelievable than that of the other young people in the saga; but he has a kind of stupidity found only in the very evil.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
Since Bean would rather save Petra than kill Achilles, once he is forced into that choice, this "proves" to Achilles that Bean is weak. Achilles doesn't believe in the existence of loyalty, true friendship, willing self-sacrifice. To him, as to many evil persons, these are just other names for "weakness." (We DO get into Achilles' head, briefly, near the end of Ender's Shadow.) This ignorance of love and loyalty proves to be a fatal miscalculation on Achilles' part.
Bean was also bewildered, for a time, (in Ender's Shadow) by such phenomena as willing self-sacrifice: "It was easy to explain why society needed heroes, but what explained the heroes?" But Bean was capable of admitting that something might be real, even if he couldn't understand it (yet).
That is why Bean won, and Achilles lost. Posted by LockeTreaty (Member # 5627) on :
Achilles is not stupid, but in comparing him to the others who attended battleschool he was only average. His draw for battleschool wasn't in his Test scores, but in his leadership ability. And I most definitely agree with Achilles unpredictability being his largest asset in the war. In the case of Peter it is not in the intelligence department that he is lacking. As a matter of fact he is full of it, and seems to be full of just about everything else,too. His flaw seems to be his arrogance. This is witnessed thru both SOTH and SP. And if anyone wants to squabble about Peter's intelligence I suggest rereading the whole Ender series. Throughout those first four books it is constantly said that all three children were of the same basic intelligence, and that only there personalities varied. EG, the last third of Xeno, and COTM all speak a great deal about this, and is therefore all but impossible to suggest Peter is stupid, regardless if he went to Battle School or not. The way I see it the only reason that Peter and/or Valentine weren't taken was because they weren't the ideal candidate and Graff knew that after one Wiggin child was taken there would be no chance that Theresa and John Paul would let another child leave their home. So Graff used the parents as a breeder would, only taking the best of the litter. And anything Graff said to Peter about his lack of intelligence was probable done more to calm Peter's arrogance than anything else. Now of the people who still reside on Earth Peter is still the second most intelligent person, excluding the adults whom are never measured with the exception John Paul who could arrguably be more intelligent than Peter, right after Bean, whoes lifespan will quickly put him out of the rankings, with the rest of the battle school brats following, roughly, equally together. Actually Peter is more like a combination of Achilles and Bean, than a duplicate of Achilles but more sane. Peter just lacks the military training that the two received.
Posted by unohoo (Member # 5490) on :
I agree that Achilles is not stupid. If anything, he is undisciplined and arrogant. That is why I was hoping for more about him in the books, because he is such an important character, I wanted to learn more about him. Instead, I'm left to speculate about him. So my speculation leads me to conclude that he is intelligent and undisciplined for the game he is currently playing. His is street smart but unworldly when it comes to the big boys. He thinks he knows just how to manipulate anybody, and that is where his arrogance lies, he cannot perceive that anyone could possibly be wise to him. He didn't even think Bean was wise to him until Bean trapped him at Space camp.
I also think that Peter has exhibited the most growth of them all. He's had to learn that he doesn't have all the answers, that he can't manipulate everyone, everytime, learn that his parents are probably as intelligent as he is (both mommy and daddy) and that they love him and that their love is worth a lot. He's also had to learn how to take responsibility for his actions, and he is doing it. I hope that Peter gets more ink in the next shadow book, as it appears that he is poised to be the most important person for the Earth in this time frame (for the Shadow series).
Posted by wieczorek (Member # 5565) on :
quote: I wanted the books to last longer
unohoo - I understand more so. My thinking is the same. I also agree with your statement about Peter's character growing the most. He went from being a memorably vicious child to being a memorable yet somewhat caring world ruler. Noticeably, there are some changes I apologize for the misunderstanding.
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