This is topic Ender in Exile contradictions in forum Discussions About Orson Scott Card at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by robertfriedland (Member # 12300) on :
 
I just finished reading Ender in Exile and noticed a contradiction between it and Shadow of the Giant.
In Ender in Exile, Ender tells Peter that because he is the Speaker for the Dead, he can only publish The Hegemon after Peter dies. Peter accepts. However, in the last chapter of Shadow of the Giant, Peter waits around hoping that he will see The Hegemon published before he dies. Why would Peter wait for the book to be published, if Ender had told him it would be after his death?

Additionally, Ender in Exile introduces something not mentioned in any of the Shadow books: stasis. We know that stasis was in use during the Shadow series; colonists voyaging to Shakespeare were put into stasis and Ender's colony ship left early in Shadow of the Hegemon. We also know that a person does not age during stasis--it is how Graff managed to stay alive long enough in order to see through the colonization project. This poses a question: Why would Bean need to go on a relativistic space voyage to be alive when a cure is found for Anton's Key when he could simply have been put into stasis?

Just a thought.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
I do not like that book
 
Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
 
What a surprise. [Roll Eyes]
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Yozhik:
What a surprise. [Roll Eyes]

No need for sarcastic eye rolling.
The original was good powerful stuff. Ender in Exile though was about 90% nagging about monogamy and morality and not nearly enough story. The dude needs an editor to make him stop doing that. Including taking over each character and having them make speeches about morality and monogamy.
 
Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
 
I haven't finished EinE yet (I'm only on disc 1 of the audiobook), but I do know that in many, if not most, of OSC's books, characters engage in discussions, often long ones, about the right way to act. (Xenocide/COTM particularly.) It seems that the mere fact of these discussions isn't the issue (unless you didn't like Xenocide either); it's that you disagree with the content. [Cool] In which case, I'm not sure why you continue to read, unless you have a Statler-and-Waldorf complex. [Wall Bash] ("Why do we always come here/I guess we'll never know...")
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Yozhik:
I haven't finished EinE yet (I'm only on disc 1 of the audiobook), but I do know that in many, if not most, of OSC's books, characters engage in discussions, often long ones, about the right way to act. (Xenocide/COTM particularly.) It seems that the mere fact of these discussions isn't the issue (unless you didn't like Xenocide either); it's that you disagree with the content. [Cool] In which case, I'm not sure why you continue to read, unless you have a Statler-and-Waldorf complex. [Wall Bash] ("Why do we always come here/I guess we'll never know...")

Well, I think I've given up on the Ender series because of... the moralizing in the Bean series was more so in the original series and after reading this series for several times I noticed a line that drove me up a tree and made me a bit annoyed...
So mostly it's disagreeing with the content, but I really wanted Ender in Exile to be good.... I really did. See my review on Amazon.
Under Akemi.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
But if she didn't read it, she wouldn't get to say that she doesn't like it whenever the topic comes up!
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
It's just that LINE I think in the last Ender book... Valentine told Novinhau that it was good that she had that first husband of her that was abusive.
It was kind of messed up... All of those children were so.. hurt by having a man like that tormenting their mother all the time.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
Which brings us back to "What a surprise." [Wink]
 
Posted by la.SOMA (Member # 10608) on :
 
having valentine say that to novinah didnt sit very well with me either. but in the same token, wouldnt that be all valentine could say to at least help novinah live a life of less grief and regret?
 
Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
 
Can you give me a page reference, Syn? I'd be curious to see it in context.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
OK, but I can't find that book anywhere. I think I'll see if I can find it at the library next time i go there.
Do you have the hardcover or the paperback?

Also, it took me several readings to get a bit annoyed about his portrayal of Japanese and Chinese people for some reason.
 
Posted by oscfan (Member # 12170) on :
 
Poor robertfriedland. Will everyone stop teasing Synesthesia and answer robert's question already?? [Razz]

I think OSC just didn't think about the Peter thing because there were a lot of similar contradictions in EinE...

As for the Bean thing, isn't it because he didn't know how long it would take for a cure to be found, so he couldn't go into stasis for fear of missing the message? That, and he probably wanted to teach his children how to pilot the ship in case he didn't live long enough.

That's just from my POV. Hope it helped!
 
Posted by MSgtGunny (Member # 12425) on :
 
personally, i think stasis wasn't really needed besides maybe for Graff. But if card had stasis being invented after bean left, ender can use it later on updated star ships.
@oscfan, he could put his children in stasis as well and if the IF had control over Mazer Rackam's ship, which was over a century old, they could easily send a message to the ship to either return or at the very least wake bean up.
 
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MSgtGunny:
personally, i think stasis wasn't really needed besides maybe for Graff. But if card had stasis being invented after bean left, ender can use it later on updated star ships.
@oscfan, he could put his children in stasis as well and if the IF had control over Mazer Rackam's ship, which was over a century old, they could easily send a message to the ship to either return or at the very least wake bean up.

This. Bean could have left before stasis was a possibility.
 
Posted by MSgtGunny (Member # 12425) on :
 
It actually sort of makes sense, because as said in Ender in Exile, Ender learns that Peter became hegemon WHILE in flight, just a week or two in which, if i remember correctly related to 1-2 years subjective time. Then consider that bean left like 3-4 years after peter became hegemon, i think, and its easily possible that they invented stasis during this time.
 
Posted by Catseye1979 (Member # 5560) on :
 
Except stasis was being used on the ship Ender was on at the time.Most of the colonists on Enders ship choose to go into stasis during the voyage. Which means it was invented before Ender's ship left.
 
Posted by MSgtGunny (Member # 12425) on :
 
good point, maybe they needed someone always awake on a ship, but i honestly don't know.

But did anyone else think, when they learned that the descolada changes the dna of the organism while it is living, that they could also make another version of it that would turn off anton's key when bean's children reach full height? This would stop growth, and by that time they would still have extremely advanced intellects.
 
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
 
Gunny, I thought of it .__., but they didn't need the descolada to turn the key off for the childrens-children, the whole point of using the descolada on Path was to make the genetic change happen too fast for the body to reject itself..

Hell by that, they could make Beans kids absolutely normal once someone like Ela takes a look into it.....
______________________________________
Novinha needs to die before I am satisfied with the Ender books, she was possibly the worst characer of all the books I read... poor ender had to die a damn Filho just to make the $%&$% happy.
_______________________
Also anyone else think religion takes too much of a topic in the later Ender books, expecially that on lustania, like holy crap, the next new humanlike lifeforms and wow their Christians already, was incredibly lame /:
 
Posted by Moderus (Member # 10653) on :
 
Here are the big problems with the EinE. Ender's ship left before Beans', so if it had stasis, so would Beans'. Also, Beans' ship was the newest ship at that point when he left, so putting him in stasis would be an option. In earlier books it states that Bean would probably live to at least 20 years old, 25 if he was lucky, and then that suddenly changed to maybe, MAYBE, making 17. I'm sure the change was for dramatic effect and to make the story seem like it was moving along at a rapid pace due that deadline, but it robs the earlier stories of their value. OSC, to me, has been a lazy writer as of late, never really paying attention to what he wrote before. What annoys me most is the fact that the Maker series and the Ender Series are pretty much the same series, character wise. Alvin is Ender, Peggy is Jane, ect.

What should happen is that Bean's children put him in stasis when his body starts to fail him, that way when they meet up with Neo-Peter and Jane, Jane can take him Outside and he'll be fixed, along with his kids. I'm sure I'm not the only person who's concluded that the people of Path had Anton's Key turned, as well as having the OCD-like gene put in there. All of this is possible if you have a writer that would pay attention to what he's written.
Don't get me wrong, I love the Ender/Bean/Maker series, but sloppy writing is ruining the legacy of all three. To simply kill off Bean diminishes the character because the same thing was done to Ender. I can understand making parallels but it's getting ridiculous.
 
Posted by KirKis (Member # 12454) on :
 
The technology for Stasis was only used for Colony ships. Bean left in a more personalized ship which wasn't big enough for Statis technology. I'm sure it could be written in Shadows in Flight that Bean and his children have already solved the power requirement needed for their ship to contain Stasis technology but... who knows?

This wasn't based on any evidence. Just a possible reason why this could be so.
 
Posted by Fremen (Member # 11984) on :
 
A lot of those arguments make sense for EinE and the probable errors in it, but I just like to think of it as non-Canon because, honestly, I thought the quality of writing in it had seriously degraded.

The Ender series was awesome in my mind, and the Shadow series started hot, then became a little action oriented and less deep or well written, but EinE was pure crap. I remember my reaction after reading it: Forget this ever happened, this book sucked.
 
Posted by TJ (Member # 12561) on :
 
Of course the technology for stasis was around when Bean and his children departed for space. Of course the IF (or Col. Min.) could have given him a ship capable of stasis. There are dozens of possible solutions to the dilemma Bean and his children faced, several of which are strongly hinted at during the shadow series itself. Ultimately there are only two reasons Card would have Bean divorce Petra with no prior discussion and leave for space:

1. he wanted to get Bean out of the way so that Peter could have his wife, but still wanted to get another book out of Bean.
2. lazy writing.

I go back and fourth between these two, but have just re-read Shadow of the Hegemon- a book rife with contradictions- I think it's probably the second. Or maybe a combination- he got it into his head at some point that Peter should marry Petra, and couldn't be bothered to think of a conclusion to Bean's story that was actually consistent with the characters.

Sad, really. The great thing about about Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow was that Card wrote so well for people much, much smarter than himself, and did it well. By the end of both the Ender and Bean quartets, his genius characters behaved so stupidly that they weren't even believable as people of normal intelligence and reason.
 
Posted by Seatarsprayan (Member # 7634) on :
 
I love so many of OSC's books, but the stasis thing really is inexcusable.

It's not that we can't come up with some justification for it if we wanted:

Bean would have wanted the starship option anyway, because he wanted Petra to move on, and not have him in a freezer on Earth as a reminder.

He wouldn't feel safe in stasis, since he was such a valuable War Asset.

He wouldn't be in stasis in the ship, because who is going to raise the kids? Perhaps it's not possible to automate stasis. Perhaps stasis requires lots of care of the people in it for some reason, like turning them over so they don't get bed sores.

There are lots of reasons why Bean would have still chosen to get on a ship. (I personally thought divorcing Petra was STUPID, and the whole family should have gone, but that's neither here nor there I guess.)

The problem is we have to make up these justifications, because stasis clearly DID NOT EXIST prior to EiE. They never mention it, only the near-lightspeed time dilation effect. Then suddenly it appears, on Ender's ship, which is the FIRST colony ship.

And it appears with no fanfare like it had been there all along, which is kind of inexcusable since ship-go-fast time dilation had been a MAJOR plot point in a LOT of books.

Really, if stasis technology exists, there would be a lot of Worthing Saga type societal issues as a result: lots of people would LOVE to go into stasis if they could. These implications are not even treated to a paragraph explaining how expensive or dangerous or whatever it is and why only Graff can use it on Earth.

OSC can write wonderful characters, but sometimes his world-building leaves a lot to be desired... hasn't he even admitted he doesn't really care that much about whether he gets the ages of characters right from book to book? I have to agree with TJ that is just lazy. Even if he doesn't care, he knows his readers do.

I don't search OSC's books trying to find errors. I really don't. So if one pops out it's usually because it TOOK ME OUT OF THE STORY. Which is something a storyteller should be concerned about.

I don't want to be reminded that I'm reading fiction, I want to be immersed in Ender's world, and stuff like that just makes me go "Hey! Wait a minute!"
 
Posted by TJ (Member # 12561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Seatarsprayan:
I love so many of OSC's books, but the stasis thing really is inexcusable.

...

There are lots of reasons why Bean would have still chosen to get on a ship. (I personally thought divorcing Petra was STUPID, and the whole family should have gone, but that's neither here nor there I guess.)

The problem is we have to make up these justifications, because stasis clearly DID NOT EXIST prior to EiE. They never mention it, only the near-lightspeed time dilation effect. Then suddenly it appears, on Ender's ship, which is the FIRST colony ship.

And it appears with no fanfare like it had been there all along, which is kind of inexcusable since ship-go-fast time dilation had been a MAJOR plot point in a LOT of books.

Really, if stasis technology exists, there would be a lot of Worthing Saga type societal issues as a result: lots of people would LOVE to go into stasis if they could. These implications are not even treated to a paragraph explaining how expensive or dangerous or whatever it is and why only Graff can use it on Earth.

OSC can write wonderful characters, but sometimes his world-building leaves a lot to be desired... hasn't he even admitted he doesn't really care that much about whether he gets the ages of characters right from book to book? I have to agree with TJ that is just lazy. Even if he doesn't care, he knows his readers do.

I don't search OSC's books trying to find errors. I really don't. So if one pops out it's usually because it TOOK ME OUT OF THE STORY. Which is something a storyteller should be concerned about.

I don't want to be reminded that I'm reading fiction, I want to be immersed in Ender's world, and stuff like that just makes me go "Hey! Wait a minute!"

Completely agree. It's a credit to Card as a writer that he can create characters that we feel so strongly about that we become angry when he does something awful to them. But of course, it wasn't just because Bean was out of the picture that the ending of Giant is so upsetting, but because all of the characters behave in such profoundly stupid, out-of-character ways for no apparent reason. It reminds me a good bit of Flowers for Algernon:

Smartest Person Alive: "all the smartest researchers have tried, but nobody is able to find a cure for my condition. I guess I'm doomed."

Nobody At All: "But wait! YOU are the smartest person alive, so why don't YOU try to find a cure?"

Smartest Person Alive: "Oh, I should have thought of that SINCE I'M THE SMARTEST FREAKING PERSON ALIVE."

Yeah, Bean's stupidity at the end of Giant is a sore point for me.

But even besides that, you are right about how much the story suffers for the reader when the world of the narrative is as inconsistent as Card's. I don't read the books looking for errors either, but when Ender's Game tells me that the Wiggins moved to the city to a home Ender has never been to, and then I'm reading Shadow of the Hegemon and Bean and Ender's mother go on and on about how they are in the house Ender grew up in, it takes a real effort to get myself back in the story again.
 
Posted by Novarising (Member # 13632) on :
 
So in EG when Ender goes back to earth and talks to Valentine on the boat, Val tells Ender about Peters plans to take over the world. Shouldn't she have told Ender about Locke and Demosthenes too? But in EIE, in the end of ch4 he finds out that Peter is Locke and Valentine is Demosthenes. I dunno if any of you have noticed that, but thats a contradiction eh?
 


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