posted
When did Petra and Peters' relationship or liking of each other start, I've been re-reading the Shadow Series and I think it starts in Shadow Of The Giant. I don't want to believe it was started simply from that letter that Peter read. And does anyone else think she may love Peter more than Bean? Because it seemed to me that Petra married and had children with Bean mostly because of their similar pasts and Bean's intelligence and tatical skill.
Posts: 18 | Registered: Jun 2009
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posted
In my opinion, Petra did love Bean more than she loved Peter. Just because their love was based on "similar pasts and Bean's intelligence and tactical skill," that doesn't make it any less real. Reread the last page in Shadow of the Giant. One of Petra's last lines was about how she never stopped loving Bean, or longing for him when she looked at their children.
Also, I think Peter started to become interested in Petra in the middle of Shadow of the Giant. He has this one line where he says something like, "wouldn't it be nice to have Petra look at him the way she looks at bean", but then he corrects himself from "Petra" to "a girl".
In my opinion, Petra didn't fall in love with Peter until a while after Bean left. It was just after she read the letter that she realized that Peter wasn't a monster, and that he cared about her.
Posts: 6 | Registered: Nov 2008
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posted
Lets be honest, Peter used to be a monster, in the end he got the power that he always craved and didnt anticipate the cost of it all. Being a large part of the childrens life, being thier male role-model especially helped him grow up and calm down, and I think thats why he was able to lower his defenses and say those three vulnerable words.
I do believe that the love between Petra and Bean was more intense and emotional. For instance, Petra thought it would be odd for Bean to actually say "I love you" in a letter, because in love like thiers the whole thing was as if saying I love you. Some couples say love over and over, but some never need to say it, just a look and a brush of skin and its the same as if they did. I dont see how Petra could have loved Peter while he was still obsessed with power and didnt concern himself what happened to other people, but instead appreciated the man he became while she was ignoring her responsibilitys and feeling of loss after Bean left.
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posted
In a sense you are saying that Petra and Bean fell in love because of a shared experience. Because of this shared experience, they understood each other.
But the same is true of Peter and Petra, they lived through an experience that bonded them, an experience that no one else shared they way they did.
I think more than who loved who best, we are seeing a pattern in Petra that is actually quite normal and natural. People tend to bond with people who have a shared experience, especially as shared experience as intense as the one Peter and Petra shared.
Think of the castaways on the TV show 'Lost', they are bonded by an experience, almost to the point of being dysfunctional around anyone else.
Petra fell in love with Peter because he was one of the few people that she could trust, because of their shared experience around Bean and Achilles.
I think as many who take a second husband or wife, she loved Peter equally but differently. Though in another sense, you never forget your first true love.
posted
I'm not sure that Petra loved either Peter or Bean in the traditional sense of the word.
During the Bugger War, Petra broke, hard, during a crucial moment. This effected greatly and from that point she stopped being a doer. Petra's main motivation after that seemed to be to effect the world through her kids and, to this end, she latched on to the smartest guy available.
When Bean was around, obviously he fit the bill, but after he left, Peter was the most obvious choice.
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Petra is a soldier, and what is the most basic lesson taught to soldiers? Lead, follow, or get out of the way. Petra, while brilliant is not the greatest leader, so she follows, she follows Ender Bean and Peter all for the same reason, they did not hold her gender against her. Nor did they expect less from her because of it, never seeking her like Achilles did, her life was a storm and she liked it that way, why wouldnt she only see strongest rock in the harbor?
Bean even said it himself, that he and Ender had both been willing to let a girl stand above them, and at that time they were the only two boys she had ever loved. Kinda like she only trusts and follows those who would trust and follow her. Odd, but just a view on a fictional girl.
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posted
Bean saving her had something to do with it (and she was the one she was counting on), and Petra sympathized with Bean at points in the novels, like how she was the only onw who noticed that when everyone was bummed about haveing Bean as their (alternate/temporary) commander, it hurt Bean's feelings. She cried about the Poke story. She argued that his guilt for being unemotional proved that he was a good person and deserved to have a family.
It wasnt purely, you're the smartest so I love you.
Posts: 1407 | Registered: Oct 2008
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posted
I'm not sure. It doenst seem like a good reason to get married while you're only seventeen. I dont deny that it was a significant factor, but I wouldnt say it was the overwhelmingly decisive reason.
Posts: 1407 | Registered: Oct 2008
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quote:It doenst seem like a good reason to get married while you're only seventeen.
Well, she's certainly not the average love-struck girl who gets married young because she's sure that she will always feel the way she does and be the person she is today. She's pretty much obsessed with the idea of having Bean's children, for various reasons, and that requires immediate marriage, since they have little time and Petra is apparently strongly religous. The question is whether that's all there is to it...
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posted
She probably sympathized with Bean's condition too. And I think she was sure because there was a lot to how she loved bean.
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