I finished Ender + Bean Sagas and I'm now into Alvin. But I did find some incompatibilities and problems in the book.
A: If Graff was ALREADY Captain when John Paul was a kid, how come he was STILL in the army when Ender graduated? Assuming the minimall age you'd be Captain is 30 (if you're REALLY good you'r a General later on, which Hyrum wasn't), and assuming John Paul would be 6 y.o at the time, by the time JP would be 25 (assuming Ender was born then), Graff would be 50. Furthermore, by the time Ender was 15, Graff was 65 and he STILL was in the army.
That is, of course, assuming that JP was that young when Ender was born.
B: In "First Meetings", why is it Captain Graff and Lieutenant Anderson? It doesn't fit Ender's Game OR Ender's Shadow. HUH?
C: John Paul and Theresa, how superfluous!
Jonny.
P.S. State all incompatibilities you find!
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I don't understant what you are saying for C.
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
I would guess Pope John Paul and Mother Theresa... *shrug*
I didn't get A... Or B.
Maybe because I haven't read First Meetings yet.
-Katarain
Edit: And frankly, I don't really like that people come here just to criticize OSC's work without a word of praise--with the implication that there are many inconsistencies. These types of errors are bound to happen (although I don't know if the above ones are accurate), but I think they're pretty rare and untroubling.
[ October 13, 2004, 08:22 PM: Message edited by: Katarain ]
Posted by Boris (Member # 6935) on :
I'm going to take a wild swing at this one. A: It seems like no one realizes that in this criticism you are refering to the fact that a person being a captain for 25 years is impossible in the real military because a person is given an honorable discharge if not promoted in a certain amount of time. What you fail to realize is that no one realizes it because not many people who haven't had a good deal of exposure to the military even KNOW about that. Now, I have a couple of points to make here. 1: Graff is a secondary character. We don't know much about him and there isn't much detail about him because he doesn't really matter. True, he serves a purpose, but he isn't Ender, Valentine, Peter, or any of the main characters that we CARE about. He doesn't evolve or change at all as a character. It would seem to me that it would be more effort than is necessary to go ahead and let him evolve, because in doing so you have this problem, point 2: Reader is reading the story, character is named Captain Whoever at the start, but there suddenly appears an Admiral Whoever later on in the story. Most people could make the connection with a little thought, but in changing his title you put a stumbling block in front of a person. They get to Admiral Whoever and instantly think, "Who? Oh wait, yeah. He got promoted". That interupts the flow of the story. Not to mention the fact that some people will even read a whole chapter of Admiral Whoever without realizing it's the same person as Captain Whoever. In order to make the transition smooth, you have to add detail about that character, which also interupts the flow of the story, because this is about <Insert main character's name here>, not Captain Whoever. Now, if you were to write a story, would you prefer to write a story that flows smoothly without any hiccups or stumbling blocks, and have people who've read the book more than a few times come up with insignificant holes, or would you write a story that is factually perfect and as easy to read as it is to wade through waist-deep mud? Anyway. Just my fifteen cents on the matter (Little too much of a post for just 2 cents)
Posted by Boris (Member # 6935) on :
Of COURSE! How could I have been so stupid. What in the world is wrong with me Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
Heheheh... Good one, I'd love it if it were true.
Hm, I could only guess that because graff is in the IF, he may have to travel at realivistic speeds at times?
Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :
Or maybe the rules have changed, since we are in the future here. Funny that you guys will accept without a second thought a military that now recruits small children and trains them to fight each other on a space station, but you refuse to consider a military that now allows people to hold the same rank for 25 years if that's the position they're needed in. Posted by Boris (Member # 6935) on :
I was actually gonna mention that. But then I didn't. (Wow. That sounded familiar somehow......)
Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :
Possibly the rules changed.
I liked that bit about the reunification with Mazer's kerma :-)
Aside from that, I realised that the edition posted here (of Ender's Game, the original) is precisely the version that appeared in First Metings. Except for a bit of proofing, what was Card implying with the "Ender's Game" there?
Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :
P.S. Does anyone have an English-Stark Stark-English-English dictionary? I couldn't find it on the OE(S)D website ;-p.
[What in the name of JANE (<name given by old holy man in Children Of The Mind>) am I taking about?]
Which reminds me, what do the Children of the Mind of Christ have to do with the book's title?! Barely anything!
Posted by Proteus (Member # 794) on :
I'd be thinking that "The Children of the Mind" refers to Peter and Valentine being re-born in Ender's mind as Children of his Mind, rather than the Filhos (Children of the Mind of Christ).
The usage of the name in the title could be for any number of reasons - irony, constraints from publishers etc...
Posted by Bean Counter (Member # 6001) on :
The original question marked as A, seems to assume army style rank rather then Navy, Captain is a medium grade in one and a senior grade in the other. So 25 yr's might not be as far fetched assuming that there are limited Admiral slots. Also I would not be surprised if a Captain in a teaching position might hold the title as an honor but be outside the military rules. I would have expected him to be a Commador or some such but who knows what traditions the IF incorporated to facilitate Hegemony? Also if John Paul were a young man at ten and had Peter at 20 then it might well have been less then 20 years to Ender.
BC
Posted by raventh1 (Member # 3750) on :
A: Simply solved with a couple short lightspeed trips; Come on, Graff is extremely talented, as we see with him basically knowing what Ender is up to most of the time. He is a teacher, it could very well be just an honorary title.
Posted by jd2cly60 (Member # 450) on :
"My name is Graff, Ender. Colonel Hyrum Graff" page 19
And also consider that the first meetings story was written in the midst of writing/rewriting EG screenplays where changes to Graff's character and or arc were probably much more fresh in OSC's memory than the novel he wrote almost twenty years ago.
Adam
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
Okay, Graff was probably Capt. at 24-26 years old since in First Meetings he is young. Next If it had been 10 years for Peter to be born, then 1 years later for Val, and 1 more for Ender Graff would be 37-40 Years old. Trust me, in the Army it is very possible to to be promoted to Major then Colonel by than. In Ender's Game the book, Graff is Colonel, Anderson is a Major end of story. The original short story was written when Card was younger and had less understanding of things worldly. (Thank god he got rid of "greeno" slang). Also remember, Graff was a teacher in Battle School then (remember Dimak and what-his-name were captains) so it is perfectly possible to have been promoted to Major and made into the Executive Officer, then Colonel and the Commander of Battle School. So 6 years later Graff is est. 46, 53 by the end of the Bugger wars. Woah! If he had been collecting interest for all that time... So anyways, that's it end of story. Trust me if you are either A) have a General pissed off at you or B) in a very important position it is very conceivable to remain a Colonel. He was probably a Major at age 35 then Colonel at age 45. Very conceiveable. And Admiral Chamrajanger was also a Captain back then and proably being skilled was promoted to Commandor than Vice Admiral, Rear Admiral then Admiral. Si thats that.
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