Hatrack River Forum: Ender's Family Tree Poster

This is topic Ender's Family Tree Poster in forum Discussions About Orson Scott Card at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by Jay (Member # 5786) on :

Interesting… I didn’t realize there were that many family members to have a tree! Should be neat. Guess it’s got the whole extended stuff. Can’t blow it up much to see much clearly….

On the front home page by the way

Posted by CRash (Member # 7754) on :

Hurray, a family tree! I love family trees. It looks like a good half of it (right side) consists of the family trees from Speaker: Libo's family (parents, 5 siblings, wife, 4 kids) and Novinha's family (parents, 3 siblings, husband, 6 kids). Looks like the whole Wieczorek family is there too with their 9 kids, including John Paul. Side note: did I guess correctly that Ender would also be named after JP's brother Thomas, or was it noted in the books that that was his middle name? For a second I was like "psychic brainwave!" but now I think I just picked it up from a story somewhere.

The far left side is all of the Delphiki/Arkanians, from Bean and Petra's parents to the 9 kids (Achilles and Randi are on there too as surrogates of Achilles II). Peter and Petra also have "5 children" listed. The Wiggins are in the middle, with the dotted lines leading to the "children of the mind" - Peter 2.0, Val/Jane, and Miro (who apparently is a father of himself).

One part of the tree that could be clarified: Olhado's children. The two named ones are listed, but Olhado is "surrounded by six children" (Xenocide, page 163). If Peter's 5 nameless children are listed, I think Olhado's unknown 4 should be listed as well.

The part on this tree I think is problematic: Valentine's children. One of them is clearly called "Ren" in Speaker for the Dead but that child is nonexistent on the tree.

quote:
Speaker for the Dead, pg 80
When Valentine's daughter Syfte was four years old, and her son Ren was two...

Not to mention the issue in Speaker that Valentine has five children early in the novel (page 82: "the miracle of each of her five children...") but by the time she talks to Ender that number is down to three (page 374). Taking into account the mystery child Ren, I've always assumed that somehow two of Valentine's children died in those 22 years. I suppose the author of the family tree just decided to count the three in Xenocide: Syfte, Ro, and Varsam, but IMO it isn't complete without "Ren," whether that poor boy is a continuity error or not.

[Dont Know]

Maybe I'm getting too nitpicky about this, but I like family trees and genealogy. Plus if this is the "authorized" Ender Universe family tree it would make sense to be as accurate as possible. I don't think the two things I noted would make the tree too confusing (though some devilish part of me wonders what would happen if one of Valentine's children/grandchildren married a Delphiki or a Ribeiro in the future). [Evil Laugh]

Posted by tribalpages (Member # 12212) on :

[Removed spam. --PJ]

[ November 02, 2009, 10:13 AM: Message edited by: Papa Janitor ]