posted
I just re-read this after re-reading EG for the 10th time after reading SotG for the first time.
For some reason I'm a little irked at Bean. His constant criticism of everyone and everything. The idea that he could possibly be Ender’s second. This never bothered me before but it does now. I think the entire plotline of ES undermines Ender's greatness. It like when you grow up and figure out your dad isn’t the greatest guy in the world – its something that does happen but that doesn’t mean you have to like it.
I'm guessing that OSC didn't have ES in mind when he wrote EG originally so it seems like its been squeezed in through the gaps in EG's plot to make it work.
I like to think of Ender as Arthurian. Arthur couldn't ever lose on the battlefield. The fates had ordained that he'd take any field of battle he stepped on.
I sort of felt the same way about Ender. I know its SF and there's nothing magical about it. But just the idea that there might have been someone better than Ender kind of bothers me.
I really like heroic fiction and I give up those heroes grudgingly.
The line that Rackham says after the final battle “you were young and brilliant and reckless” I didn’t feel good knowing that anyone was even close to Ender in skill or ability.
posted
Bean is not like Ender, in practically any aspect. On one hand, he was separating of the others for proper will, whereas it was forcing Ender to be the best. Also he is too cold; to manage to conquer the enemy it was necessary to understand first and LOVE HE, which Bean was never allowing himself
And I might continue a lot of time...
Posts: 111 | Registered: Aug 2004
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But I disagree. I think that ES only highlights Ender's greatness. To me, the crucial point about ES was that, despite the fact that Bean was as good at Ender in many aspects, sometimes he was better, Ender was still the natural leader.
Throughout ES, Bean increasingly acknowledges the differences between him and Ender, and why he can never be Ender. The part towards the end of ES where Bean is stepping in as commander but Ender is the real commander shows that Bean could do a good job, sometimes a better one, but he couldn't do Ender's job. And Bean accepts that - He knows what he's good at but he also knows that no-one could but Ender could be Ender.
That's actually something I liked about ES - It's hard to create a story with two strong heros who could so easily have merged into the same character. But OSC avoided that - Both characters have their flaws and each have their own role to fullfill.
The bit about Bean constantly criticising people - I don't think that's entirely true. He points out peoples' faults, but in a very strategic and 'matter-of-fact' manner. He's hardest on himself. I don't think he comes across as arrogant, either. He's just aware of his capabilities, and doesn't hold himself back if he needs to use his full ability.
posted
I have trouble identifying with Bean too, and for that reason I prefer Ender, and Ender's Game, though it could be that you prefer the hero you read first, having identified with him first. I think there are several reasons why Bean is more difficult to identify with.
First, Bean, when he arrives at Battle School, is not human. He lacks humanity not because of Anton's key, but because of the way he was brought up. Children need socialization to make them human, and Bean completely lacked that as a child, and that more than anything affects his behavior. If you look at the scene where he parts from Sister Carlotta, and he hugs her, not because it means anything to him, but because it means something to her, I think you will see a good example of this. Yet even the time he has spent with her has started him on the road to humanization. A few months before he wouldn't have thought to give her a hug at all. His lack of emotion makes him difficult to understand, or to really identify with.
Secondly, this lack of emotion prohibits Bean from appealing openly to our pity or empathy. When Ender is depressed, he feels sorry for himself, bitter, and angry. All things that any human being can identify with; not so with Bean. Even as a starving child in the streets, he doesn't feel sorry for himself. He can't know to feel sorry for himself. OSC manages to evoke a little pity with his physical description, but Bean himself won't allow for it. When he sees a problem he solves it, and if it is an unsolvable problem, like the fact that his fellow battle school students dislike him, he dismisses until it becomes a threat, because it's not anything he can fix.
The third reason why ES is a little less compelling is that Bean lacks desire. He isn't the center of his own story, ever. All he wants for himself is physical safety, and food, really. This makes him into a less human hero, than Ender, because when Bean does something other than ensure safety and food, he does it for someone else. He has no problem in helping others to achieve their desires. He gives Ender his army. He takes the excellent kids that would normally have been passed over, and puts them into that army to help it succeed. After Battle school in the other books, he rescues the others, then he is helping Peter. His own desires, beyond the necessary things for life, are to help others fulfill their desires; mostly.
I say mostly, because in my opinion, the driving plot line behind Bean's story his humanization. With each story we get another step closer, he becomes more human. I haven't read SOTG yet, but I can't wait to. For me the politics and all the rest are secondary to seeing Bean become a sympathetic, empathetic person.
From the very first chapter of Ender's Game, Ender commands our sympathy. We have lying adults, bullies, beatings, and Valentine, who gives us insight into the heart of Ender even when he is a soldier to the core. He is motivated by an understandable mixture of logic and feeling. He loves his sister, but believes in his duty. Ender allows himself to be manipulated by those feelings. He feels responsible for the human race, and later he feels responsible for the death of the buggers.
But when Bean does anything, he seems to have one of two reasons. Either he absolutely has to do it or someone will die, or he does it because he can. It never occurs to him that he ought to do something, or even that he wants to do it, he just does it. If he doesn't succeed at something (a rare thing) he just tries again. He isn't discouraged. He can't be manipulated either. That's why Graff wouldn't have trusted him ultimately to command the invasion, there was no handle for them to hold him by. He had no feeling of responsibilty toward the IF, and even as he gets older he doesn't feel allegiance to anyone other Ender, who conveniently leaves.
Ender's Shadow is a good book, I enjoy it and think that it brings a new and deeper aspect to many of the peripheral characters in Ender's Game. I'd agree that it doesn't give much more insight into Ender, but I don't think that more is required, we understand Ender just fine. For me though the primary story is told in Ender's Game, and Ender is the important one. He is afterall the one they choose.
Bean's story is still worthwhile; still worth reading. It's more of an adventure story, what my English professor my call a novel of incident, where Ender's story is more a novel of character. I understand the feeling that Ender is reduced a little bit when we know what Bean really is. However, the two of them don't compare. The fact is that at the time that a great commander was needed, Bean wasn't anywhere near capable of it emotionally. Ender was, and as Rackham pointed out, he was brilliant at it, as they and we knew he would be. Most of all he succeeded. Would Bean have been able to do the same? Would he have been able to do it with fewer casualties? I don't think so, not because of his inability, but because this was too big for him to do alone, and no one else had the confidence in him, and he lacked the trust in them, for him to have lead anyone.
This is a really long post, but it's something I've thought about quite a bit. For the record, I like both stories and have read them both numerous times. I'd be interested in hearing sometime what those who prefer Bean see as the way Ender's Shadow is better than Ender's Game.
Posts: 349 | Registered: May 2003
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quote: First, Bean, when he arrives at Battle School, is not human.
quote: This makes him into a less human hero, than Ender, because when Bean does something other than ensure safety and food, he does it for someone else.
Wow. You describe Bean is inhuman and then highlight the aspects of his character that I thought were most human. It's always interesting how, even though we read the same words, we all read different books.
The way I read it, Bean seemed inhuman because that's the way he saw himself. The book is written in third person, but entirely from Bean's perspective, so it's his view of himself that permeates the book. But his actions often cantradict that view. For instance, he doesn't kill Achille even though he knows he will never be safe while Achille is alive.
Posts: 152 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Wow. Perceptive analysis. No need, really, for me to respond. Except to say:
1. OF COURSE I slipped Bean in through the cracks in Ender's Game. What, you think I'm prescient and KNEW I was going to write a parallel novel? Get real!
2. Bean did not diminish Ender's greatness. Bean was the best strategist. Ender was the best leader. Remember that in EG, it IS Bean who prods Ender forward on the two occasions when he froze up. The point is not that Ender thinks of everything, but that Ender has the brains to surround himself with reliable people and then rely on them. That's a great part of being a great commander.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
"The point is not that Ender thinks of everything, but that Ender has the brains to surround himself with reliable people and then rely on them. That's a great part of being a great commander."
Kind of like what George W. Bush does (albeit not QUITE as well as Ender)?
posted
Hehe - Yes BryanP. Bush is just like Ender. Inface, maybe he 'is' Ender, in a modern day setting!
I completely agree with Sartorious. I don't think Bean seems that inhuman, really. I agree it's just the way that Bean sees himself and any social inadequacies are because of his life on the street.
I prefer the Shadow Series to the Ender Series but as individual novels, I can't choose between EG or ES. To me, ES is just the 'extended version' of EG, but without being too similar to EG. I definitely think that ES shouldn't be read until after EG because while ES does work as a stand-alone novel, as Sartorious points out, EG is the 'real story'. I do feel that ES feels slightly less rushed than EG, for a number of reasons - In Ender's Game, I was really eager to know what was going to happen, and read it in 3 hours. With ES, I took my time as I knew where the plot was leading. I also am judging in retrospect, having read ES as an 'extension' of EG, before going back to EG.
That's a point I was trying to make - At the end of Ender's game, when Ender supposedly freezes, Bean rejects the choice to take over because he doesn't know what to do and he has faith in Ender. That's a vital part of the story which is constantly reinforced - Everyone has faith in Ender and wants him to command them, whereas there's always a slight resentment of Bean. It's Ender that 'breaks the rules' and win the 'game', when Bean couldn't see a strategical way around the problem. When it comes down to it, Beans a good strategist and a good soldier but he says himself that he's not the leader Ender was born to be.
Posts: 77 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
In point of fact, George W. Bush is the first MBA we've ever had as president - and he has done his alma mater proud. He is a superb manager. This comes even from opponents of his policies who have observed him closely. You may not like the results, but the process is about as smooth as anyone can remember ... probably the best-managed executive branch since Eisenhower.
Bush is no Ender - precisely because he knows to turn military things over to the military, with civilian supervision of the goals, not the specifics.
But the military is also using that principle more and more. It's one of the reason you have a lot of retired military grumping about how we "didn't have enough boots on the ground" - as if more men would have made all the terrorists pop up and surrender - after a certain point in a guerrilla war, more soldiers just means more targets.
The new military doctrine, which has won out in recent years precisely because of the active sponsorship of the Bush administration, is very similar to what Ender did - entrust lower-level commanders with more and more discretion. Watch them closely to see who is good at it, but give them a chance to make real decisions because they're close enough to the action to have a better idea of what they're doing.
This decentralization of field command is working, and working very, very well. I'd like to think that Ender's Game played a small part in it - at least the guys who came up with the military doctrine have said so. And it's Ender, not Bean, they learned from ...
I think Ender's reputation is doing fine.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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quote: Bean did not diminish Ender's greatness. Bean was the best strategist. Ender was the best leader. Remember that in EG, it IS Bean who prods Ender forward on the two occasions when he froze up. The point is not that Ender thinks of everything, but that Ender has the brains to surround himself with reliable people and then rely on them. That's a great part of being a great commander.
Exactly. A true manager, a commander, or anyone who is in a position to lead others has to understand he may not be the best at each job but he has to be willing to listen to others, make decisions, and take responsibility for his decisions. I thought Ender's Shadow was excellent because while Bean was cocky and arrogant at first, he saw his own flaws. He saw why he couldn't do what Ender did. He knew the strategy and he could think of things others couldn't but he wasn't at a point where he could be the leader he needed to be. He could analyze a battle for you but he couldn't get the soldiers to follow him blindly.
You will often find that the great leaders of the past had someone else behind them guiding them when they needed it.. some of us call them wives..
Side note: My friend is a Captain in the Army and part of becoming a captain was to read Ender's Game. Of course, this prompted me to reread the book, which in turn prompted me to read all of the books in the Ender/Bean series.
How long has Ender's Game been used in the military and how prevalent is it?
posted
I read the book when I was in the Navy, and passed it on to as many people as I could. EG is very prevalent even if not officially so. I know a few people who have personally changed their leadership styles because of EG. I think both EG and ES together make a better example of what it means to lead that either one does alone. Bean is brillant but he can't inspire the love and loyalty like Ender can.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
When I was in the Marines it was on the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps official reading list. I read a significant number of the books on that list and when I read "Ender's Game" I got hooked on Orson Scott Card's books.
Posts: 148 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
First off Bean could not command effectively becuase he didn't have the people skills. Just like what Graff tells him, or was it Mackham?, that no one really liked him in battleschool and in Enders Jeesh. Too analitical. Which leads into my second point, that while Bean could look at a battle and see all the logical and best ways to destroy an enemy I don't feel he could get in his enemies heads and predict their movements the way Ender could. Secondly I don't feel he was able to think outside the box as much as Ender and would not have thought of such things as the enemies gate is down.
Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
It did make me a little uncomfortable to read that Bean was smarter and a better strategist than Ender. I think it is because I love Ender so much, I don't want anything to possibly diminish him.
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