posted
I did a quick search on the forum and did not see anything, but who knows...
Does anyone know the ages of Bean and Petra in the Shadow Puppet book? I am assuming (you know what happens when you assume...) they are around 15, or still very young.
How about Shadow of the Giant? Will be starting that soon.
Posts: 7 | Registered: Apr 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
Bean is very young - about 12 or 13 I'd guess. However, Bean is not human, he does not develop mentally or physically on the same time line, so his actual age is rather meaningless. I believe Petra is about 19. Ender was 11 when he destroyed the Formics. So I would put Petra at 14 in the last battle and Bean at 7 (as it says). Give, say, a year for them to get home after the battle. That'd put them at 15 & 8 when they get home. (Here is where you run into a discrepancy because Card says Bean's parents showed up when he was 11 - don't know what to make of that, maybe some sort of mental readjustment for human age translation). Say they both get a year to live at home with their parents. Then when the kidnapping takes place they are 16&9. Give a year or so for the activity in Shadow of the Hegemon and another year or two for life in Brazil before Puppets starts, and I end up with 19 & 12 (or, if you adjust Beans age to 11 when his parents show up, that puts him at 15).
Since Bean can't be measured by typical human age conventions, and he was obviously sexually mature in a physical sense, and had been a "mental adult" for some time - his age doesn't worry me. Petra, at 19, might be considered a little young - but nothing scandalous. She was, after all, out of school, financially stable, and very mature for her age.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Graff's age has been bugging me since I read First Meeting's in the Enderverse. He was an officer of enough rank in connection to Battle School, to have been the one to offer Ender's own father an invitation to go to Battle School, when his father was a very little boy himself. Its made mention that Graff is an older man in the end of the Shadow series, but it sounds like Mazer would be able to run laps around his delapidated butt if he's THAT old.
He just always seemed to be in his mid-thirty's in EG, and progessivly through his forty's and early fifty's when shadow series wrapped up. But he's atleast twenty-three year's older than Jean-Paul Wiggin if not older, because Mr. and Mrs. Wiggin are never given any hint as to thier ages, except that they met while twenty-one, with no mention to when they had Peter.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
You forget that Graff is God and does not have to bother with humans things like actually having an age.
Posts: 399 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
That's so funny, this bugged the heck out of me too! My unofficial calculations while reading (whithout actually having gone back to check anything) were that Bean was 15 and Petra was 19 when they got married, but now that I think about it, I'm not sure how I came up with those numbers. It's very puzzling. Bean was 6 when he joined Ender's army, but I'm not sure how long they spent in command school. I assumed he turned 8 by the last battle. I decided that Petra was 2 years older than Ender (he was promoted to army at almost 7, nobody is promoted before 8, so I figured Petra was probably around 9 at that time), so that made her 14. I'm pretty sure Ender was 12 in the last battle, not 11. He left earth at age 13, so... Ah, here's a little timeline with Bean and Ender's respective ages, I wonder how accurate it is http://ansible.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline Anyway, I always assumed that there were 5 years between the last battle and Bean and Petra's marriage, but that would put their respective ages at 13 and 19. I say we go with OSC saying Bean was 11 when he joined his parents which makes them 15 and 19, somehow that seems more acceptable, lol.
Posts: 11 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
Here is a very long post about Bean/Petra's ages that I started, then looked for quotes, then added to until it became ridiculously long. You can just skip to the last sentence to see my conclusion.
Bean is something like 3 1/2 years younger than Ender if you match up the EG/ES descriptions. Petra would have to be at least 2 to 3 years older than Ender, considering she is already in Salamander by the time Ender gets there at age 6 ("Six years, nine months, and twelve days old," EG p76), definitely can't be younger than eight (SotH says "She had been seven when she got from Ground School to Battle School..." p7, and EG p69 mentions that no one gets advanced until they're eight years old), and Petra is commanding Phoenix Army when Ender is 9 years old (EG, p138). So that means the age gap between Bean and Petra might be somewhere from 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 years.
[Side note: the Ansible timeline is off when it comes to Ender's age in the Bonzo battle, he is already ten by then (EG p209).] At the end of the war, Ender was 11 and has recently turned twelve (At EG 299 he's eleven, SotH, p361; EG, p309 and p307 say he's twelve: "'He's only eleven.' 'Twelve, now.'" ), Bean is probably 8 (according to ES p426, he went to Tactical School at 7), and Petra is 14 years old (SotH, p6, 15, and 35) The very strange reference in SP to Bean being eleven when his parents showed up (p5) has to be inaccurate for any of the other dates to make sense.
By SotG, OSC attempts to consolidate this timeline by claiming Bean is 16 (SotG, p351 and also this from 198: "'What are you Bean, sixteen?' asked Fly. 'I was never actually born,' said Bean, '...But sixteen is probably close.'") which would make Petra 21-22 or so. This fits with the p97 description of the jeesh: "We're none of us even twenty-five yet. Well, maybe Dink. He always lied about his age. Most of us are in our teens or barely out of them." The teenagers would be the ones from Dragon Army if this were true, all younger than Ender, and the ones who were his age, like Alai and Shen. Also the p198 reference again, when Fly claims their ages are all clustered around twenty years old.
I'm not sure how to account for 8 years' worth of aging over SotH and SP, which always bothered me a bit. But anyway, all this probably makes Bean 15 and Petra 20-21 when they got married in SP.
Posts: 973 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I decided a LONG time ago that, while nobody can do characters as well as Card, you had to sort of "squint at" any of the technical details in alot of his works. He's not particularly good with things like time lines....
Still, gotta love his stuff! (I actually first wrote "Gotta Love Him"... but I thought that looked kinda creepy)
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Speaking of ages in the Shadow Series, did I miss something or did Peter Wiggin lose 30 years of lifetime between Shadow of the Giant and Ender in Exile?
Posts: 5 | Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I just finished re-reading Giant, and there he's dying at the age of 77. But I seem to recall that in Exile, he's dying much younger, at 47, from an unexpected exceptionally weak heart. (In Giant, it's a 50 year time-lag from Earth to Shakespeare, while in Exile, it's only 20 or so.)
I guess we'll need an alternate last Chapter for Giant, too...
Posts: 5 | Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Actually, now that you mention it I do recall the inconsistency in Peter's age, but I think EiE says he's "nearly 60" if I'm not mistaken. Go figure how that works out.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
In Giant they say he lived for awhile after the interview. My guess it wasn't released until they were on the way to the next colony to account for the difference in age.
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Giant had him at 77 at the time of the interview actually, not death. And also strongly implied that John-Paul had been dead for a while when that happened [ which is probably why OSC had to change the timeline here, since he needed them both alive and well when Ender hit Shakespeare.]
Posts: 5 | Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Speaking of the age of the Wiggin parents, in Teacher's Pest, Theresa Looked up the records of John Paul, and found out that he was 1 year younger than him FMp73. I thought this seems to be a contradiction to earlier in the story when John Paul thinks that Theresa looks like she was only 16 or something like that, though this doesn't mean she was actually younger.
Aside from this, in Shadow of the Giant, Theresa tells Bean,"I'm forty-six years old, When Val and Andrew get to their destination, I'll be ... old. Why should they write to me?". As mentioned by CRash, Bean appears to be 16 in SotG, so that would mean she was probably around 27 when Ender was born. John Paul should be about the same age.
Posts: 5 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
In another thread way back, I calculated that conservatively, Graff would have to be around 60-65 in Ender's Game for him to be of age to be a Captain in The Polish Boy. Assuming he's 30 as a captain, and that John Paul fathers Ender at the age of 30 (his third child, and he meets Teresa at the age of about 22), and that Ender is 6 when he first meets Graff, that would put Graff's age at around 60. Not out of the bounds of possibility.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
The youngest commissioned officer in the U.S. military in the 20th and 21st Century, is Fretwell, Timothy C. - b. 11 April 1985 and commissioned in the USMC on 25 March 2005 - age 19.
Posts: 197 | Registered: Jan 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Steve_G: why 30 for Captain? I imagined a younger Captain Graff. Early 20's is not unreasonable.
Early 20's is in fact a bit unreasonable. Now, if you're going by the navy rank model, a Captain of the Army is closer to lieutenant on a ship, and a colonel (what Graff is when Ender's Game occurs) is more like a "captain" of the Army. But this is the IF, so we can assume something closer to Navy ranks, meaning he is a junior officer. Given that, perhaps he gets a commission at 25, but earlier would be difficult, and attaining his apparent position in the fleet would be even harder. But then there's really no telling, because the IF seems to train its people from such an early age, so for all we know Graff is 18 when he meets John Paul, although it's odd that this is not dealt with in the story.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:But then there's really no telling, because the IF seems to train its people from such an early age, so for all we know Graff is 18 when he meets John Paul, although it's odd that this is not dealt with in the story.
I think we can discount that - the idea of giving responsibility (and not just training) to children is only just emerging when JP's recruitment is being discussed, so it couldn't have applied to Graff.
Posts: 96 | Registered: Jun 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Steve_G: why 30 for Captain? I imagined a younger Captain Graff. Early 20's is not unreasonable.
Early 20's is in fact a bit unreasonable. Now, if you're going by the navy rank model, a Captain of the Army is closer to lieutenant on a ship, and a colonel (what Graff is when Ender's Game occurs) is more like a "captain" of the Army. But this is the IF, so we can assume something closer to Navy ranks, meaning he is a junior officer. Given that, perhaps he gets a commission at 25, but earlier would be difficult, and attaining his apparent position in the fleet would be even harder. But then there's really no telling, because the IF seems to train its people from such an early age, so for all we know Graff is 18 when he meets John Paul, although it's odd that this is not dealt with in the story.
The IF is only one aspect of the military that exist in the Enderverse, the Army still exist under the Strategos. Furthermore all terms used at battleschool were Army terms like Armies, Platoons etc and not Naval terms like Squadrons, or starboard. Also when Val wrote the letter to Ender to get him to continue with his training she got a medal from the Strategos.
I'm thinking as part of the power sharing agreement the Strategoi ran the school.
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:The IF is only one aspect of the military that exist in the Enderverse, the Army still exist under the Strategos.
Ah, is that how it works? I thought the relationship of Strategos and Polemarch was more like that of Secretary for Defence and Chief of Staff. No clue what I'm basing that on, though...
Posts: 96 | Registered: Jun 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Steve_G: why 30 for Captain? I imagined a younger Captain Graff. Early 20's is not unreasonable.
Early 20's is in fact a bit unreasonable. Now, if you're going by the navy rank model, a Captain of the Army is closer to lieutenant on a ship, and a colonel (what Graff is when Ender's Game occurs) is more like a "captain" of the Army. But this is the IF, so we can assume something closer to Navy ranks, meaning he is a junior officer. Given that, perhaps he gets a commission at 25, but earlier would be difficult, and attaining his apparent position in the fleet would be even harder. But then there's really no telling, because the IF seems to train its people from such an early age, so for all we know Graff is 18 when he meets John Paul, although it's odd that this is not dealt with in the story.
There are no colonols in the navy. So why would you assume the navy rank of captain intead of army? Besides a Navy Captain is equivalent to an army colonol.
Posts: 197 | Registered: Jan 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:The IF is only one aspect of the military that exist in the Enderverse, the Army still exist under the Strategos.
Ah, is that how it works? I thought the relationship of Strategos and Polemarch was more like that of Secretary for Defence and Chief of Staff. No clue what I'm basing that on, though...
I always thought of the strategos like the joint chiefs of staff.
Posts: 197 | Registered: Jan 2007
| IP: Logged |
There are no colonols in the navy. So why would you assume the navy rank of captain intead of army? Besides a Navy Captain is equivalent to an army colonol. [/QUOTE]
That's what I meant- I said: "a colonel is like a captain of the army," I meant: "an army colonel is like a captain of a ship," which is what I should have said.
If we follow army rules, then being a captain would have been easier for Graff, but still tough before late 20s. As far as I know you only get to be such a young captain during war time- but then perhaps that applies to this situation as well.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:As far as I know you only get to be such a young captain during war time- but then perhaps that applies to this situation as well.
Again, I think you're being over-careful. Wartime produces young officers because of field commissions to fill vacant spots. Graff isn't in the field in any sense, he's at Battle School. And, irrespective of his nominal rank, he already seems to be in a poition of some influence, which means he didn't only just get transferred there.
Posts: 96 | Registered: Jun 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by CRash: Which would make Petra 21-22 or so. This fits with the p97 description of the jeesh: "We're none of us even twenty-five yet. Well, maybe Dink. He always lied about his age. "
If Petra was 21-22, then wouldn't Dink have been the same age? I thought they were in the same grade and that's why they were so close in Battle School. If I'm right, then the Dink lying about his age part doesn't really make sense.
Posts: 30 | Registered: Aug 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
Re Polemarch vs Strategos, this is one of the few original bits from the first issue of the "Ender's Game: Command School" comic:
quote: ... comprised of three separate bodies... The Hegemony, charged with supreme command of humanity's space fleets... The Polemarch, which is the political leader of Earth, and the Strategos, in command of Solar System defense.
This obviously isn't right, and if Card had at least proof-read, he should have spotted the mix-up, so I'm hesitant to attach any weight to the fleet vs defense distinction. Shame.
Posts: 96 | Registered: Jun 2009
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
