quote:Originally posted by kamp101: It's just an extension of his guilt in a pretty hokey fashion. What, now we have to see Ender emulate the way Novhina was with Marcão in Speaker for the Dead? And the way he throws out the percent chance of dying arbitrarily afterwards! Come on! Are you Andrew Wiggin or C3PO? Not to mention the point you raised with the Hive Queen depending on him...
OK, I'm gonna trade this thing for some credit at a used book store ASAP...
Good idea. You'll be less like this
It's just that book drove me up a tree. I got it out of the library and I'd pick it up at home and read passages of it and just literally scream.
I did the same thing with Eldest, but I never finished that book.
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It was specifically this passage I was asking for examples:
quote:The only thing abnormal about the environment Ender was in when confronted with Stilson was that he didn't have a monitor... which means it was just like any present day bullying situation. No exceptional circumstances. His third status isn't worse than any other pariah status anyone else has had, and I'm pretty certain when he reflects back on the Stilson fight when fighting Bonzo he knows that his life wasn't in danger during any earlier physical encounter (like it is with Bonzo).
Have you read the other material OSC has written regarding population laws?
Being treated like a pariah is different than being bullied. There was nothing normal about Ender's situation; being a third was comparable, I think, to the early days of AIDS-- when kids who'd gotten the disease from an unsanitary needle-stick, or from a bad blood transfusion were shunned and feared.
That's why, when Valentine writes as Demosthenes, "The greatest title that a child can hope for is Third," it's so outrageous and inflammatory.
How do you justify your statement that Ender was being bullied the same way that any child in history has been bullied in light of this?
Understanding the amount of pressure Ender was under is key to understanding why he reacted as he did. It doesn't excuse it.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I know the context in which thirds are treated in the book. I doubt it's worse than being black or Jewish in the wrong school in the south. I got singled out to be bullied as a kid because I have Tourette's syndrome. I didn't kill anyone. How many kids with AIDS killed anyone who shunned and feared them, or even -- doing what Ender MEANT to do, -- put them in the hopsital?
But if you agree with the statement <i>It doesn't excuse it. </i> -- then surely it's not a stretch to say that Ender was also (at least partially) if not mostly to blame for killing Stilson. Which he says he wasn't in EIE. Which is a pretty stupid and amoral statement for a character we've come to expect other things from.
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The situation's origin (Graff's manufacture) in no way negates the particulars (lack of immediate threat once Stilson was incapacitated and the gang was preoccupied with that + Ender's decision to brutally injure him, resulting in his death, whether intended or not). He's to blame for killing Stilson (even if you disagree with how much he is to blame, surely you agree he's at least partially to blame?)
I mean, it seems to me the Ender you're arguing for would have said something like "I'm partially to blame, yes, because the action that was taken had to do with my nature and a tactical decision I gave priority over moral concerns, but I was being bullied by Stilson and manipulated by Graff at the time."
Ender in EIE says that neither he nor Graff is to blame - just Stilson is.
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quote:"I'm partially to blame, yes, because the action that was taken had to do with my nature and a tactical decision I gave priority over moral concerns
Again-- I'm not sure that moral concerns were at the top of Ender's mind at the moment. You stated previously that Ender was being portrayed as super-moral; and both Valentine and Graff thought he was a sweet kid. I think that the story proves that Ender fooled them both, and perhaps a number of readers, too.
Ender was convinced that Stilson and his gang were a real threat to him, both in the moment and for the forseeable future. He felt like he had no other choice; his experiences as a pariah were effective evidence. It wasn't moral; but it was, according to his logic, justifiable.
We can stand back and say that this was a terrible decision for a child to make; we can certainly hope and work to make a world in which no children make this same decision.
I'm sorry not to take your word about EIE; I've seen enough things taken out of context to mistrust what is written about what OSC writes. I'll have to read it for myself, I'm afraid.
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OK, now you're just talking crazy, and apparently I am going to have to copy and paste from my earlier posts in this same discussion that you could have read yourself because you're too lazy to find them yourself and yet still stubborn enough to keep repeating your irrelevant points. Look at the quotes from the text:
Ender's Game - after knocking Stilson on the ground, before deciding to seriously injure him (and actually killing him):
"It took Ender by surprise— he hadn’t thought to put Stilson on the ground with one kick. It didn’t occur to him that Stilson didn’t take a fight like this seriously, that he wasn’t ready for a truly desperate blow."
"For a moment, the others backed away and Stilson lay motionless. They were all wondering if he was dead. Ender, however, was trying to figure out a way to forestall vengeance. To keep them from taking him in a pack tomorrow."
That means that this statement from you:
Ender was convinced that Stilson and his gang were a real threat to him, both in the moment...
is not true. Stilson didn't take the fight seriously, his gang wasn't doing anything to take revenge on Ender, and Ender was concerned with a new fight breaking out tomorrow
He killed an opponent when he was defenseless and to avoid danger that wasn't immediate. It's in the text. Read it.
From EIE:
"I don't blame myself, you know..." "I'm responsible for killing Stilson and Bonzo and all the formics in the universe. But I'm not to blame."
Read it for yourself, I don't care, but if you don't think the novels try to hold up Ender as a super-moral guy, you're not in a position to be evaluating what's taken out of context or not.
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"Sweet kid" is abstract. "Sweet, innocent kid" (the original term in the argument) is less so, and I would agree that Andrew probably wasnt.
Andrew was morally reflective but still acted selfishly in many of the novels; he takes a huge risk with the way he interract the ribiera's. He determined that he could help but there was a liability that it could have made things worse. I've always thought there was concealed ambition to his actions, but still acted morally because he did think that his actions would be for the better.
And I think his feelings could have been a bit warped from all the stress he was under during battleschool. He could have concievavly thought that and then changed his mind (atleast to 50/50 reflection on his actions) after being able to settle down, spend time with Valentine and Jane, and become Speaker for the Dead. Ofcourse I havent read all of EinE, but I'm not sure you have either.
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It's not hard for a person to say one thing but deep down feel another way. I'm sure Ender can intelligently say its not his fault but when it come down to it he never believed it. If he did why would he have created Young Val and Peter? I'll quote Miro on this one
quote: Before they ever took him away from his parents, before he ever went up to that Battle School in the sky, before they made a perfect killing machine out of him, he was already the brutal, ruthless killer that he always feared he was. It's one of the things that even Ender tries to pretend isn't so: He killed a boy before he ever became a soldier. He kicked that boy's head in. Kicked him and kicked him and the kid never woke up. His parents never saw him alive again. The kid was a prick but he didn't deserve to die. Ender was a killer from the start. That's the thing that he can't live with. That's the reason he needs you. That's the reason he needs Peter. So he can take the ugly ruthless killer side of himself and put it all on Peter. And he can look at perfect you and say, 'See, that beautiful thing was inside me.
That's From Children of the Mind.
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Ender was convinced that Stilson and his gang were a real threat to him, both in the moment...
is not true. Stilson didn't take the fight seriously, his gang wasn't doing anything to take revenge on Ender, and Ender was concerned with a new fight breaking out tomorrow
He killed an opponent when he was defenseless and to avoid danger that wasn't immediate. It's in the text. Read it.
STILSON didn't take the fight seriously. ENDER didn't expect to take him down easily. ENDER didn't imagine that STILSON didn't take the fight seriously.
I don't see that anything in the text disagrees with what I've written. That you find a different interpretation in it is fine; I think your interpretation is wrong.
I'd appreciate a more civil tone, though.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I think I see where you might be getting confused about the argument I'm making:
quote:Ender was convinced that Stilson and his gang were a real threat to him, both in the moment and for the forseeable future.
"In the moment" here refers to the period of time between which Stilson confronts Ender, and when Ender disables him.
You are correct that Stilson and his gang are not immediate threats to Ender after Stilson is on the ground. I think we might have been starting from two different time periods-- I was looking at the whole scene, while you appear to have been considering the time from when Stilson was knocked down.
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quote:if you don't think the novels try to hold up Ender as a super-moral guy, you're not in a position to be evaluating what's taken out of context or not.
The three novels following Ender's Game (Speaker, Xenocide, and Children) set Andrew up as a moral guy.
Ender's Game, not so much. He's shown as being brilliant and a bit neurotic; we have sympathy for him because he's this little kid thrust into a dangerous world, and he gets picked on unfairly, and he's sooooo tortured by the urge to be Peter...
I don't think we love him because he's moral, though.
In Ender's Game, can you show where he's depicted as the moral superman? I think that Val is the one who plays that role in EG...
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quote:Ender was convinced that Stilson and his gang were a real threat to him, both in the moment and for the forseeable future. He felt like he had no other choice; his experiences as a pariah were effective evidence. It wasn't moral; but it was, according to his logic, justifiable.
This paragraph is referring to Ender's decision to kick Stilson's face in, which happens <b>in the moment</b> in which Stilson is on the ground. You can't pretend now that:
quote:"In the moment" here refers to the period of time between which Stilson confronts Ender, and when Ender disables him.
Because that makes no sense in the conversation we're having, which is about Ender's decision to kick a downed opponent in the face. I've already stated that kicking Stilson and knocking him down/out whatever, is fine. That's reasonable self defense.
Others: we can go around all day about how moral Ender is throughout the rest of the series. I think his morality or lack thereof is summed up by something Novinha says at the end of Speaker for the Dead. I don't have the book with me, but it's after he plants Human and has a reconciliation with Novinha and she says some line about him being like a surgeon's scalpel or something, I don't remember it exactly: it conveys the idea that he's the one who will do what is necessary even when what's necessary is an awful thing, but that it will have some good effect (if not the best effect) in the end.
The whole thing is that we're led to believe that Ender is a moral guy despite doing all these bad things because there's a good reason for the bad things he's done. My point is that someone who kills another kid when they're 6 and the kid is helpless on the ground and then rationalizes it as the other kid's fault is not a good person.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Uh, yeah, steel toed shoes is pretty much canon with the original book.
There's a line by Ender's mother than doesn't really make any sense unless you assume Ender's shoes are steel toed or possibly covered with knives.
Upon hearing that he kicked Stilson a couple extra times, she says something along the lines of...
"With your shoe, Ender, that wasn't exactly fair."
I'm not sure if any one has mentioned this yet, but in the comic, it looks as if Ender was wearing sandals of some sort during that first fight. I have never known sandals to be all that deadly.
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quote:This paragraph is referring to Ender's decision to kick Stilson's face in, which happens <b>in the moment</b> in which Stilson is on the ground. You can't pretend...
I don't have to pretend; and you don't get to make decisions about I mean my point to be.
You CAN argue that I'm being unclear, or illogical. I don't think I have been, though.
quote:My point is that someone who kills another kid when they're 6 and the kid is helpless on the ground and then rationalizes it as the other kid's fault is not a good person.
A lot can happen between the ages of 6 and adulthood. I think there are extenuating circumstances in Ender's case-- his environment, for one. I don't feel your interpretation of Ender's character takes those factors into account.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Ok, enlighten me then. Why would you be talking about Ender's decision as if he had made it in a different context than the one in which he actually made it?
Your other point boils down to "it's complicated." Yes, I'm aware of that, the problem I have is not as much with EG as it stands, or EG within the context of the original four books, but EG with EIE's rewrites, when suddenly Ender doesn't reflect back on the things he has done as crimes and says all the blame is with Stilson.
As far as I can tell, you don't have any point to make, because you keep waffling about whether or not you're defending Ender morally, or not, by somehow arguing that he's not supposed to be a moral character and is in fact just a deadly killing machine and that I'm misreading the book, but despite saying that, you keep arguing with my characterization of his act as extremely immoral.
So, before I waste any more time on this, will you just answer in a simple yes or no fashion:
[1]Do you think Ender's deciding to kick Stilson repeatedly, (1a)knowing it would cause serious permanent injury at the very least, (1b)while Stilson was unable to defend himself, and (1c)while Stilson's gang was not making any attempt to hurt Ender after Stilson was knocked down--- is morally defensible?
Answer yes, no, or disagree with any of the premises contained and explain why you think my reading of the text in producing those premises is incorrect or not. Otherwise you have two choices:
(2) Outline your Third Rage defense for why it was OK for him to kill the guy.
or
(3) Dispute the fact that (3a)after every action in which Ender does something that seems vicious, we aren't bombarded both by Ender's own guilt and comments from other characters like this:
"I have no doubt of it. I'll be waiting for you to get here. I watched the vids of what he did to the other boy. This is not a sweet little kid you're bringing up here."
"That's where you're mistaken. He's even sweeter. But don't worry. We'll purge that in a hurry."
In which one character presents a pretty weak comment about Ender not being a good kid, and someone immediately counters and the counter is left undisputed (which, by the way, the context there is that Card wants you to think the character with the uncountered, final comment is correct).
... and 3(b) that this means we're supposed to think Ender is a good character throughout the book.
If you dispute (3), the rest of my argument is irrelevant to you, because you don't think Ender's a good guy. Well, good for you, but then you really have nothing to add here.
If you go either dispute (1) or (2), then there's a discussion to be had.
There's the point which is critical to me -- point (4) that in Ender's Game, (4a) he reflects back on the things he did as crimes, and (4b) the entire course of the series is a huge narrative that puts his aiua in Peter's body at just the appropriate point in time to stop two other pre-emptive (x)genocidal strikes on alien threats to humanity - the descolada by way of the piggies, and the makers of the descolada. However, in EIE (4a - fail) he blames Stilson alone for Stilson getting killed, and the new narrative (4b) is that the Buggers, er *cough* Formics set themselves up to get killed and Ender is a detective trying to figure out why.
It's even worse than that. In Ender in Exile, humanity isn't to blame for killing the buggers - pg. 305:
"We saved our lives, Ender."
"No," said Ender. "That's what we thought we were doing, and that's what we should be judged for -- but what we really did was slaughter a species that wanted desperately to make peace with us..."
To Tom: I'm disputing the reasonable point you've brought up, that in EiE Ender follows some trajectory of development from not acknowledging his wrongs to letting Achilles beat him up. Instead, the reasoning I disagree with is given logical carte blanche throughout the book - that force which goes way above and beyond the necessary level in order to remove any trace of any potential threat up to and including genocide and killing other 6 year olds is just fine and dandy, but isn't is sad that the choice was made with limited knowledge!
Even though we find out that part of Graff's big motivation was identical to Lebensraum (part of the Nazi agenda -- literally, "living space") --- humanity needed to wipe out the buggers so they could have a large share of colonies -- this motivation is revealed in the EiE, and Graff is not a super moral guy in the books, but he's portrayed sympathetically, like a good guy with some tragic flaws, certainly not a Nazi.
Not only this book horribly written in several parts, but its morality is off the scale low.
Scott: it doesn't make any sense for you even to talk about part (4) here, even though it's the most central point, because you haven't read the book, so kindly stop assuming my interpretation of the context is wrong when you don't even know what the context is.
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quote:Instead, the reasoning I disagree with is given logical carte blanche throughout the book...
Oh, I know. But given that it's entirely possible to interpret the book my way, and my way makes it a more enjoyable read and is (IMO) more charitable to the author, I'll stick with my interpretation. Otherwise I'd just be letting the book make me unhappy.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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We've been through this so many times now, I feel like I'm feeding the troll.
1.) People have already mentioned that 1a is clearly false. He did not know he was doing any permanent or lethal damage. You can get kicked in the groin and still live. You can pop ribs and still live. It so happened he lacked training and was wearing steel toe shoes. If you have a believability issue here, then there's nothing we can do to help you.
2.) Nowhere does it say Ender is the personification of moral superiority. It so happens that most other characters in the novels hold him in deep respect and largely agree with the decisions he makes. This is because the other characters are mostly military as well and see that Ender made the best possible choice in the situations he had faced. Since most of these characters think this, you seem to reach the conclusion that the novels are saying Ender is the epitomy of morality, but this is not so. What Ender is supposed to be is a genuinely good person who has to make terrible choices that do haunt him. But what good person kills other 6 year olds, etc? Once again, upon reading the books you should have your answer, but you don't then there's nothing I can really say here.
3.) You clearly have a different definition of "blame" than I do. Here's the last example I will give for this: if someone is using an innocent civilian as a human shield and has a gun in a populated area, and I am a sniper who decides to take a shot then there is a risk I may also hit the civilian. If I do so, am I to blame for that civilian's death? Certainly I am responsible for that death, but am I to blame for it? If I could go back in time, would I choose a different course of action? Of course not! I would still take the shot, with the same risk involved because it's the best-indeed only-choice. Acting with limited information or risk then making the best decision and losing that gamble does not entitle you to blame.
So how is humanity to blame for events which happened as a result of an inability to communicate, understand, or reach any sort of peace with a completely aggressive enemy? If you think that complete destruction of the formic species is what pisses you off, then that's a completely different discussion - was the complete destruction of the buggers necessary under the only possible assumption that they wanted to destroy humanity?
4.) The idea that Graff's motivation is identical to Lebensraum is a troll joke. Lebensraum is "ok we need living space; let's go kill people inferior to us". Graff said "The buggers are dead, is it possible to use and explore their colony worlds to make sure our species never gets threatened like that again?" The fact that the human race has to spread in order to prevent that kind of threat was never the motivation of killing the buggers.
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1) EiE, pg. 113: Mazer Rackham: "I'm saying that he killed them and he knew what he was doing. Not the exact outcome, but that he was taking actions that could cause real and permanent damage to those boys."
Acknowledging that "Stilson was a petty bully."
And then on to say "I think Ender's actions were perfectly justified. He didn't choose to fight those boys, so the only choice he had was how thoroughly to win."
We're supposed to believe every word of this - Mazer is one of Orson's mouth pieces characters who never says anything that isn't perfectly reasoned out and true.
2) Pg. 284, Children of the Mind:
"You needed me to be like Ender," said Miro. "I needed you to be your own best self," said Jane. "I loved Ender, too, you know. I think of him as every man's best self."
paragon, n, 1. a model or pattern of excellence or of a particular excellence.
Geez, almost like an example of a "best" thing.
3) A hostage situation and using excessive force to protect yourself are hardly analogous, and gambling with the life of a disabled opponent is never a "best decision," that ends with "Oops, killed him - miscalculated!"
For the second part of that -- well, there are courses of action somewhere between pretending they're no longer a threat, and wiping them out completely.
4) EiE, pg. 112:
"I didn't go to Earth," said Graff, "I was busy turning Battle School into the assembly point for the colonists. No one understood why I insisted that all the beds be adult-sized. Now they talk about my foresight."
Continuing,
"So I was also in charge of the make-sure-Battle-School-is-fitted-out-for-the-Human-Genome-Dispersal-Project project." "And that's why you're losing weight," said Mazer, "Because you finally got the funding and authority to carry out the real project that you've had in mind all along."
Graff's motivation preceded the success of the Buggers, according to EiE.
The fact that the human race has to spread in order to prevent that kind of threat was never the motivation of killing the buggers.
Sorry, try again.
Once again, upon reading the books you should have your answer, but you don't then there's nothing I can really say here.
You obviously haven't read the same books, as you keep attempting to mock my lack of comprehension of them and point to it as the source of my issues. I am not playing around here to have a fun time as a troll on some random board of some random author because I read one war watch column and got annoyed.
I grew up with the original four novels and treasured them and re-read them constantly and internalized them, only to have OSC get older and embrace a militaristic stance so hostile and brutal that it would make Heinlein blush. I am finding these quotes from the original series without any of the books in front of me because I know them by heart. Jesus, just look at my member number.
Now, as a rational adult, I get to look around and wonder how much of OSC's poisonous mentality is in the original material, and therefore how much of that junk I let in and should purge myself of, so as to avoid any potential resemblance to the self-absorbed, bile-spewing jerk my favorite childhood author turned out to be.
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I think the point is that it's supposed to be harsh. That Ender is supposed to think differently from regular people, and make decisions that they would find morally upsetting-- which leads into the whole plotline of "Ender the Xenocide"-- when the same decision comes in: eliminate the enemy when he seems to be a threat (and risk discovering later that he really wasn't), or not? The point is that Stilson behaved in a way that made Ender think that Stilson was a threat to his life, so he responded. You can substitute "buggers" into that statement too. So the moral correctness of that is still debatable, but at least it's consistent with the rest of the books, it's not just this book.
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quote:The point is that Stilson behaved in a way that made Ender think that Stilson was a threat to his life, so he responded.
What, did you miss the part where Ender had already disabled Stilson and realized that Stilson wasn't actually taking the fight seriously before he thought he'd beat the hell out of him? You know, the part that's been quoted from the text twice now?
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I haven't read all of this discussion. Can you tell me this quote again? I'm under the impression that Ender at the time thought Stilson was still a threat, and would attack Ender again, if he didn't respond the way he did.
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I'll start with point 4, because it's obviously the most wrong. Everything you just quoted doesn't support your lebensruam idea. It's obvious the human race is going to have to go to other planets eventually; besides the fact that this planet won't last forever there's the asteroid that can wipe us all out, or in this case an alien species that wants to kill us. I don't care if Graff realized this when he was 3 or 30. We're using the word "motivation" in two different ways. When you say Graff's motivation preceded the success of the buggers, you mean he already wanted to spread out to different worlds, which is certainly true. However, the reason that humanity killed the buggers was not just so they could colonize those worlds - that would be lebensruam.
1.) First of all, you can't make claims like this: "Mazer is one of Orson's mouth pieces characters who never says anything that isn't perfectly reasoned out and true." Mazer Rackham is a character who has his own beliefs separate from OSC. There is only one person - the writer - who can make such a statement and he has, to the best of my knowledge, never done so. Nor does any character - Ender included - necessarily reflect on what OSC's beliefs are OR what he would have done in any similar situation.
Having said that, only the first quote you provided actually responds to what I said before. The others say that Stilson is a petty bully and that Mazer thinks Ender was justified. Both are true and interesting, but have nothing to do with Ender's motivations during the fight.
The first quote you took from Mazer is an interesting one; he says Ender didn't know what the exact outcome was going to be, but that it involved a risk that could result in permanent damage. I talk about this in point 3.
2.) I tell you that it's the characters in the story are the ones who hold Ender in such high respect and moral regard and you respond by....quoting those characters? Again, just because these characters seem to think Ender is a morally good person doesn't mean you have to. I don't think there's much more to debate here.
3.) The point is that the way in which we morally judge the situation is the same: in both situations - by the risk taken and the reasons for that risk rather than the outcome. If you think that "gambling with the life of a disabled opponent is never a "best decision,"" then once again, there's nothing left to debate here. You have your opinion, Ender has his, and OSC has his own. I'm just surprised that you could make that statement about anybody, at any time, for any scenario.
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Lands looked down at Peter and tears began to flow down his cheek. "Why did you give me a second chance?"
"Because that's what Ender always wanted," said Peter. "And maybe, by giving you a second chance, he'll get one, too."
... Chapter 16:
Peter looked around at all of them. "Don't you understand, any of you? There's only one species that we know of that has deliberately, consciously, knowingly tried to destroy another sentient species without any serious attempt at communication or warning. We're the ones. The first xenocide failed because the victims of the attack managed to conceal exactly one pregnant female. The second time it failed for a better reason-- because some members of the human species determined to stop it. Not just some, many. Congress. A big corporation. A philosopher on Divine Wind. A Samoan divine and his fellow believers on Pacifica. Wang-mu and I. Jane. And Admiral Lands's own officers and men, when they finally understood the situation. We're getting better, don't you see? But the fact remains-- we humans are the sentient species that has shown the most tendency to deliberately refuse to communicate with other species and instead destroy them utterly. Maybe the descoladores are varelse and maybe they're not. But I'm a lot more frightened at the thought that we are varelse. That's the cost of using the Little Doctor when it isn't needed and never will be, given the other tools in our kit. If we choose to use the M. D. Device, then we are not ramen. We can never be trusted. We are the species that would deserve to die for the safety of all other sentient life." ----
Why does OSC so badly want us to be "the species that would deserve to die for the safety of all other sentient life?"
How can you look at that shift and not feel hostile? And Scott - don't act like talking down to someone in smarmy manner is somehow better than calling BS when you see it. At least I have the decency to feel honest disgust at things that are morally reprehensible, instead of using condescending double speak to suggest others are incompetent. First remove the beam from your own eye...
Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I'm kind of with Kamp101 on this. Lately OSC has been taking over EVERY character, even villains sometimes and using them as a mouth piece for his point of view. It's only gotten worse in the last few years though. (He especially likes taking over Valentine, that's been apparent since Children of the Mind and possibly earlier) I can't blame Kamp101 for feeling cranky about EiE. I had the same feelings about it, but I never noticed the Ender saying kicking Stilson that way was justified until Kamp101 mentioned it.
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quote:I don't care if Graff realized this when he was 3 or 30. We're using the word "motivation" in two different ways. When you say Graff's motivation preceded the success of the buggers, you mean he already wanted to spread out to different worlds, which is certainly true. However, the reason that humanity killed the buggers was not just so they could colonize those worlds - that would be lebensruam.
What, just a side benefit they anticipated and were already prepared to take advantage of then? Come on.
quote:First of all, you can't make claims like this: "Mazer is one of Orson's mouth pieces characters who never says anything that isn't perfectly reasoned out and true." Mazer Rackham is a character who has his own beliefs separate from OSC. There is only one person - the writer - who can make such a statement and he has, to the best of my knowledge, never done so. Nor does any character - Ender included - necessarily reflect on what OSC's beliefs are OR what he would have done in any similar situation.
This just isn't true. It's really obvious when writers make certain characters their mouthpiece and then use them to preach at the reader. I'm going to quote Aris on this because he said it a lot better than I have:
quote:Signs of recognition: That the other guy doesn't offer any rebuttal but merely admires the imparted wisdom of the character. That the character goes into the generic life-lesson rather than the specific actions of the characters. "He chose. Just because he thought I was weaker than him, just because he thought I couldn't protect myself, doesn't mean it stopped being his fault."
Such a sentence seems specific on the surface but in reality it is RIDICULOUSLY abstract, meant to apply to nations and individuals alike.
If they'd stayed at the specific, instead of trying to impart a political diatribe, OSC and Ender would have realized that the sentence "he chose" is ridiculous when referring to a 6 year old "choosing" a battle to the death.
quote:The first quote you took from Mazer is an interesting one; he says Ender didn't know what the exact outcome was going to be, but that it involved a risk that could result in permanent damage. I talk about this in point 3.
To 3 with this.
quote:2.) I tell you that it's the characters in the story are the ones who hold Ender in such high respect and moral regard and you respond by....quoting those characters? Again, just because these characters seem to think Ender is a morally good person doesn't mean you have to. I don't think there's much more to debate here.
You aren't really this thick, right? You do know that sometimes characters say things to make points for authors, yes? You do know that sometimes characters are the sort of character who are almost always right? You can read when a character is providing a eulogy for another character who just died which basically sums up what the author wants us to think of that character?
These characters don't exist in a vacuum.
But when you write without deliberately expressing moral teachings, the morals that show up are the ones you actually live by. The beliefs that you don't even think to question, that you don't even notice-- those will show up. And that tells much more truth about what you believe than your deliberate moral machinations. -OSC
quote:3.) The point is that the way in which we morally judge the situation is the same: in both situations - by the risk taken and the reasons for that risk rather than the outcome. If you think that "gambling with the life of a disabled opponent is never a "best decision,"" then once again, there's nothing left to debate here. You have your opinion, Ender has his, and OSC has his own. I'm just surprised that you could make that statement about anybody, at any time, for any scenario.
3) Let's sum up some things:
You said:
People have already mentioned that 1a is clearly false. He did not know he was doing any permanent or lethal damage.
Then I brought up: "I'm saying that he killed them and he knew what he was doing. Not the exact outcome, but that he was taking actions that could cause real and permanent damage to those boys."
After complaining about my use of Mazer as an OSC mouth piece you still agreed that this is the situation. So you're original point, that he "didn't know he was doing permanent damage" was a dishonest way of saying "he didn't know he was doing permanent damage but he knew it was a possibility"
Gosh, I didn't know when I shot the guy he would die, but I knew it was a possibility! I'm not to blame!
That's just ridiculous, there's nothing more to say on point [3] if that's your position. You have a strange intepretation of intentionality as morality -- apparently unintelligent risk taking is OK as long as there's a remote chance involved the best result you want might happen.
What did Ender get out of beating Stilson senseless when he was already on the ground? Was it worth the risk of killing or permanently damaging him? No.
As for the "never" - give me an example other than this one where you think it would be just fine to risk killing a disabled, defenseless opponent with the damage you inflicted on them after they were already disabled and defenseless.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I'm not completely convinced that the situation after Andrew one shotted Stilson that he looked wholly safe. Yeah, his gang wasnt doing anything at the time; maybe they're friends well being was at the moment more important than Ender. I'm just saying that there's no reason to be absolutely certain that there wasnt an immediate, or atleast close coming threat, even if you're right. There was still a legitimate reason to be on edge, in my opinion.
Posts: 1407 | Registered: Oct 2008
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First let me just correct your sarcastic generalization of what I see is in Ender's mind:
quote:Gosh, I didn't know when I shot the guy he would die, but I knew it was a possibility! I'm not to blame!
becomes
quote:I didn't know when I hit the kid once in the breastbone, once in the ribs, and once in the crotch that he would die. I had intended to hurt him badly enough that he would never think about hurting me again, but I did not know I had killed him. I had thought that the risk of hurting him now, in a situation of some control, was less than the risk of whatever could happen in future fights.
Kamp, I'm going to provide you with a quote from Children of the Mind just before the one you provided above on pg. 337:
quote: "In his fight with two boys who threatened his life. He made sure they could never threaten him again. That's how war is fought, in case any of you have foolish ideas to the contrary. You don't fight with minimum force, you fight with maximum force at endurable cost. You don't just pink your enemy, you don't even bloody him, you destroy his capability to fight back. It's the strategy you use with diseases. You don't try to find a drug that kills ninety-nine percent of the bacteria or viruses. If you do that, all you've accomplished is to create a new drug-resistant strain. You have to kill a hundred percent."
Wang-mu tried to think of an argument against this. "Is disease really a valid analogy?"
"What is your analogy?" answered Peter. "A wrestling match? Fight to wear down your opponent's resistance? That's fine-- if your opponent is playing by the same rules. But if you stand there ready to wrestle and he pulls out a knife or a gun, what then? Or is it a tennis match? Keep score until your opponent sets off the bomb under your feet? There aren't any rules. In war."
A little while later in the same conversation we have:
quote: Peter smiled. "There are times when you have to defend yourself or someone else against relentless evil. And some of those times the only defense that has any hope of succeeding is a one-time use of brutal, devastating force. At such times good people act brutally."
"We couldn't be engaging in a bit of self-justification, could we?" said Quara. "You're Ender's successor. Therefore you find it convenient to believe that those boys Ender killed were the exceptions to your niceness rule."
"I justify Ender by his ignorance and helplessness. We aren't helpless. Starways Congress and the Lusitania Fleet were not helpless. And they chose to act before alleviating their ignorance."
"Ender chose to use the Little Doctor while he was ignorant."
"No, Quara. The adults who commanded him used it. They could have intercepted and blocked his decision. There was plenty of time for them to use the overrides. Ender thought he was playing a game. He thought that by using the Little Doctor in the simulation he would prove himself unreliable, disobedient, or even too brutal to trust with command. He was trying to get himself kicked out of Command School. That's all. He was doing the necessary thing to get them to stop torturing him. The adults were the ones who decided simply to unleash their most powerful weapon: Ender Wiggin. No more effort to talk with the buggers, to communicate. Not even at the end when they knew that Ender was going to destroy the buggers' home planet. They had decided to go for the kill no matter what. Like Admiral Lands. Like you, Quara."
This is going to be my last post in this thread, because I don't believe it is really going anywhere. Let me just say that the two posts above , at first, seem almost contradictory. They are not. First Peter says essentially what Kamp is so pissed off about in EiE. Then he says what Kamp loved about the old books. And yet these are coming from the same person, in the same conversation!
The real questions are: Did humanity do everything to communicate to the buggers before going to war? Peter seems to have thought not; Ender seems to have thought so. How far can one go to prevent future war? Where are the boundaries?
Posts: 56 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
I'm done arguing with you - you're either just being dishonest in your attempts now, or completely failing to understand context -- look at what you left out that comes after the first part of what Peter says, you know, the part that pivots around:
quote:Wang-mu knew there was something wrong with this reasoning, but she couldn't lay her finger on it.
Which is followed by Peter's outlining how Quara has misread things. That means you read over that section and left out the part that disagrees with what the point you're trying to make, or didn't realize why it mattered.
When Peter goes off on the first point: "There aren't any rules in war," it's so he can pull out the rug and say "Well this isn't war, yet" - it's to show that humanity is all to quick to consider things to be in a state of war.
Just like you're applying a "state of war" viewpoint falsely to the situation with Stilson.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:I didn't know when I hit the kid once in the breastbone, once in the ribs, and once in the crotch that he would die. I had intended to hurt him badly enough that he would never think about hurting me again, but I did not know I had killed him. I had thought that the risk of hurting him now, in a situation of some control, was less than the risk of whatever could happen in future fights.
More selective editing from you:
quote:He kicked Stilson in the face. Blood from his nose spattered the ground.
Why did you leave out the face kick? Did you forget about it? Or did you realize that it pushes the risk of serious damage involved over a reasonable level?
Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Nobody is lying to you, Kamp. They've reached different conclusions about the same book. Once on author sends his writing out into the world, we readers are entitled to interpret it any way we like. Why don't you try having a conversation with Synesthesia? I'm sure everyone would be happier.
Posts: 101 | Registered: May 2009
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posted
There's something more than just a little suspicious when someone quotes two sections of text and leaves out a part in between them that invalidates what they had to say about it.
You are entitled to interpret whichever way you like, but there are only a limited set of interpretations which actually work. You have the right to be wrong -- that doesn't make it right, that just means you're settling for being wrong.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I have a question for you kamp. If reading the books bring you so much displeasure why do you continue to read/buy them? You could have started the first Shadow book and when you realized you didn't like it stopped right there. Ignorance would be bliss to you. Instead here you are with your righteous anger. What do you expect to gain by all of this?
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Wowbagger has a point. I wish I would have ignored the Shadow Series after Ender's Shadow, as Ender's Shadow was tolerable except for the fact that bean knew EVERYTHING about everything...
You're probably better off reading something else. I have to stop reading things that bug me because they give me stomach aches and flare up the old IBS. Better to read something entertaining, or at least Old Skool Orson, but I can't read Lost Boys again because it's so heartbreaking. It's a great book though.
But, maybe Kamp101 buys them and reads them in the hope that they will be really good. I find myself watching cruddy movies and television shows hoping the turn out good. But usually they do not.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
In fairness to kamp, I finished King's Dark Tower series even though I knew halfway through Song of Susannah that I wouldn't like the ending.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Someone I knew had two copies bought for him and gave it to me for free.
I didn't think the Shadow series books were good, but they were a little bit fun in a sort of awful way and even though it reflected Card's obvious political biases, it followed up on characters in such a way that it didn't rape the original series quite so badly - the Bean retcon stuff was obvious, and the scenes which were from his point of view in EG which were repeated in ES were really, really painful, but it's not like having Ender rationalize killing a 6 year old.
I was expecting more in that line, knew some bad or hokey stuff would be likely, but wasn't expecting the book to mutilate Ender's character like it did, and involve an afterward where the author admitted he couldn't really remember much of the ending of Ender's Game and was just going to rewrite it anyways.
From the first couple of chapters, when it was obvious that Card forgot Valentine already told Ender that she and Peter were Demosthenes and Locke, and then the back and forth b/t Ender and Mazer w/r/t was like a kick in the face to my sense of the character.
I brought all this up to see what Hatrack was like these days -- to see how many people are buying this BS from Card -- and while I was pretty convinced EiE was just a horrible book and the morality presented within was reprehensible, I wanted to see the fleshed out arguments for or against it being a complete break in Ender's character, so I knew whether to just throwout it and the Shadow books, or the entire ensemble.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2000
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To identify those people use them to vent about how much the book sucked? I'm sure whatever my motivation is/was it isn't / wasn't healthy and I should probably bow out here pretty soon.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I like Ender's Shadow more than Ender's Game, partly because everything in Game was spoiled for me beforehand.
Posts: 1407 | Registered: Oct 2008
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quote:The point is that Stilson behaved in a way that made Ender think that Stilson was a threat to his life, so he responded.
What, did you miss the part where Ender had already disabled Stilson and realized that Stilson wasn't actually taking the fight seriously before he thought he'd beat the hell out of him? You know, the part that's been quoted from the text twice now?
Not to jump into the middle of a conversation with two people who are so entrenched in their thoughts that they're unwilling to change perspective for a moment, but...
From the quoted material, Ender wasn't worried about the fight at hand, but the fight that would come the next day and the day after and wanted to find a way to stop it so it would end for good. His goal wasn't to kill, but to do something against the rules of fighting that even a child his age knew (paraphrasing there).
That's why he kicked Stilson while Stilson was down.
Now, you can say that's morally wrong and that Ender didn't truly know what would happen the next day, but at some point we realize the sun will come up in the morning based on the evidence of the past. Ender knew beyond doubt that the scenario would repeat itself repeatedly. He chose to do something against the rules trying to break the cycle.
Bascially, your argument is that Ender should fight off his attacker and walk away. Then tomorrow do the exact same thing, etc. until Stilson gets bored and stops.
Nice thought, but doesn't reflect reality. A bully like that only gets more violent until put harshly in his place. Ender did the proper thing to end future violence.
There is always the chance that if Ender walked away Stilson would wake up the next morning and bake Ender cookies as a way of apologizing. A chance, but not one with a high probability.
To put it in a real world context. If police have evidence that you are going to kill someone, they're not going to wait until your victim is dead to take you into custody. Ender had evidence (as it were) that the attacked wouldn't end unless he did something to stop him and he did it, to a much further extreme than he expected or imagined.
Posts: 50 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Technically I think it is Graff's fault. If he hadn't made sure Ender's boots were steel-toed, Stilson wouldn't have died...
Posts: 16 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
I'm actually kind of glad I read this thread, because I now won't have to waste time reading the book.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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About the trial, it implicitly states that the trial is for the adults, but aimed at damaging Ender. So he won't come back to Earth. I find KAMP funny since his taking Ender's actions as a premeditated attempt at taking life means that he considers Ender to be about 30 years old with about the same mental capacity. But Ender is six. Like the children in "Lord of the Flies" children are capable of being endlessly ruthless or endlessly compassionate. Ender is both, rolled into one. In his situation, he tried to give Stilson every opportunity to back off. That is his compassionate side. However, if someone so stupid as Stilson cannot take a hint and will try to use others to hurt Ender using sheer numbers, then the ruthless calculating side of Ender will be utilized. For Ender, in Stilson's case, this means dealing enough damage to the enemy that him and his cronies wont bother him anymore. To Ender, this is under the assumption that Battle School has either given up on him, or (i think this is the case) they are testing him, and to avoid Peter and to avoid Stilson, he needs that monitor back. He cannot lose. As mentioned several times throughout the book, he doesn't know that his maximum output of damage at a critical point will KILL Stilson. He's SIX. How much damage did you think you could do to ANYONE when you were six? For Bonzo, similiar circumstances in that Ender knows its another test. He knows that Bonzo can threaten his life, his brain etc. and has been saying he would for quite some time. Same conclusion. To Ender, of course he hated these games that Graff played to test Ender, but he correctly deduces that had Stilson or Bonzo not been so aggressively prejudiced and proud that they cannot stand the very existence of Ender, the tests would have been impossible in the first place.
Posts: 10 | Registered: Jul 2009
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posted
Mazer's rebuttal in court was made to point out that the military was tasked with doing whatever it takes to preserve the survival of Earth, using whatever means available. They picked Ender the six year old because he was capable of thinking of breaking societal norms and taboos in order to achieve his goal since thats the kind of mind that will ensure our survival in a fight against an alien race. A child. A brilliant one, but a child nonetheless.
Posts: 10 | Registered: Jul 2009
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Eeeeerm, last I checked humans are encredibly frail individuals, children only more so, its amazing that we survived as a species considering how frail we are, we break things so easily its like someone stepped on a twig and we were the twig, kick someone in the head you risk severe tramae, probably caused a brain hemerrage, the kid may have had a pre existing condition (and thus no health insurance TakeThat US Healthcare) that makes him more suspeciptle to brain injuries that may have not been caught yet.
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