posted
Was parousing the internet the other day and stumbled upon this review of OSC and his books, thought it raised some interesting points among along with the bad ones.
<Removed link. --PJ>
He goes on to say that this book could be seen as though it was written by hitler apologizing for the genocide (unlikely) and the parallel of the SS members living in south america to Ender landing on a planet inhabited by Brazilians. It has an intersting link up top but this is not meant as an attack only for some discussion. Hitler has gone down in history as a monster, as did ender over his generations of starflight, what do you think.
PS: I edited the title to include the minor spoilers, genocide, lusitania etc...
[ November 01, 2006, 12:21 AM: Message edited by: Orson Scott Card ]
Posts: 201 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
The last time this article was brought up here it was asked that it not be linked. I don't think the Cards want that site or that article to get any traffic from here.
Not to mention the fact that it's inflammatory and more than a little insulting towards our gracious host.
OSC has also written a fairly in-depth rebuttal to the article, though I can't remember if it was here (the forum), here (the frontpage), or elsewhere.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Is this Kessel's essay? I thought he made some interesting points about the plausibility that various people would treat Ender as they do, and about whether Ender really would have killed all the buggers if he knew what he was doing; but he seemed to read deliberate sermonizing into Ender's Game that I never found there.
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So the link was removed by the powers that be. Oh for a site that encouraged opposing viewpoints and healthy discussions. However if this is so inflammatory to our "gracious host" then i will drop it as long as i may be linked to the original discussion on it.
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The webpage was entitled "OSC has always been an <expletive>, and it's a long rambling story about some guy who's friends with Elaine Radford, who wrote an essay called "Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman", which essay is mentioned in Kessel's essay, which is also linked to. As well as other links about Card's supposed fascism. Radford dismisses Ender's game as "all it is is an apologia for Hitler", though her allegedly rigorous essay is conveniently off-line, along with the "inch-thick documentation pack" she supposedly supplied the publisher.
It gets better!
Then the guy claims EG was written, not by Card, but by some unknown committee (presumably a Mormon cabal).
Oh, also, without these meddling kids and their expose, after the 3rd book in the EG series, Card (or the Committee to Exonerate Hitler for the greater glory of the Latter Day Saints ) would then...
quote: She felt Card was building a deliberate fraud, an artifice which seemed to be one thing but was in fact something else, and that when the third book had won its round of awards he would pull the SF community's pants down and reveal that they had given their imprimateur to one of the most controversial and difficutlt [sic] to accept tenets of his religion -- which would, of course, be a massive propaganda coup for the Mormon Church.
Of course, she had no evidence for this laughable plot, beyond a "feeling", nor for the fantasy committee. I could go on, but you get the idea. It's like Mel Gibson's character in Conspiracy Theory or Dale from King of the Hill wrote a rabid anti-Card rant.
quote:Originally posted by I Am The War Chief: So the link was removed by the powers that be. Oh for a site that encouraged opposing viewpoints and healthy discussions.
So if on your blog someone posted a long, semi-coherent rant titled "War Chief has always been an <expletive>", complete with links to anti-you essays, you'd be fine with that? Just have a civilized discussion about it? I doubt it.
This wasn't an "opposing viewpoint", War Chief. It was an idiot rambling on about OSC in the most insulting possible way.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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Ok, I read the blog thing, and my goodness it is crap. This guy is making up stuff like nothing else... how on earth could someone believe this? He insults and degrades a hero among a community, gets drunk at their social gathering at their cost and tries to blame Card for what happens. I would have socked the guy.
This doesnt fall under free speech, this is unadulterated slander and while I will be the first to help others publish their opinions, there is no way I would support this. sheesh.
Posts: 883 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I've read Mr. Card's rebuttal to the Radford "essay" (and I use that term very loosely). I found his remarks both very insightful and very moving.
As Card said in his essay, whatever poison Radford and Kessel read into "Ender's Game" existed in them long before they ever found his books. What they say about Card's work is a perversion.
Posts: 413 | Registered: Apr 2003
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In fairness to Kessel, I think his summary of how Card creates sympathy for Ender's monstrous acts is quite good. Extrapolating from there to why Card chooses to do so is more problematic.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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So the link was removed by the powers that be. Oh for a site that encouraged opposing viewpoints and healthy discussions. However if this is so inflammatory to our "gracious host" then i will drop it as long as i may be linked to the original discussion on it."
Let's see ... you came to my website and linked to vicious personal attacks on me. This was "healthy discussion"? And then we left everything you said EXCEPT those links, and I'm not encouraging opposing viewpoints?
And then you put "gracious host" in quotes. Did you PAY anything to come to this site? Have you been punished in any way? Why the mocking tone toward me? Have I come to your house and quoted people who made vicious and unfounded attacks on you?
For what it's worth, Kessel hated me before I ever wrote Ender's Game, and I have personal letters from him that make it clear that his loathing for me has nothing to do with Ender's Game or anything in it. His pose of scholarly neutrality is just part of the fakery. When you read any work of literature with hostile intent, you can find things to attack; and when you are schooled in academic blather, you can always make it sound intellectual.
The real delusion here is that when there are two opposing viewpoints, the truth will usually be found somewhere between. This is rarely true.
Just ask yourself: Are ALL the readers of Ender's Game who have been moved favorably by the book complete idiots, and only Kessel and the others mentioned here are wise?
As for you, Tom, by all means, be as fair to Kessel as you can. He needs all the fairness he can get. After all, he clearly believes in fairness himself ... as do you.
This whole thread disgusts me. There are so many places on the web where people can and do attack me. I just don't understand the kind of people who have to come to the author's own website to do it.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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