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Author Topic: Ender and Jane's relationship *WARNING: SPOILERS*
Cheli
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Well, I've read EG, SftD, Xenocide, and CotM before. In the past few days, I've been re-reading Speaker for the Dead.

And as I read, because I know what happens in the rest of the series, I find myself wondering: did Ender love Jane?

I would like everyone to think about it carefully before replying because it seems the common reaction is to jump in right away with an enthusiastic yes.

And I don't want to sound like an English teacher, but any specific references/quotes/page numbers would be greatly appreciated.

[Note: this is my first thread here, so I hope I didn't do too badly.]

[Note #2: to be honest, quite a bit of my interest in this is because I'm finding myself comparing Ender and Jane's relationship to a real life one; I'd rather not get into details because it's personal, but I notice some similarities in the situations.]

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Flaming Toad on a Stick
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Ender let himself become very attached to Jane. This is something different for Ender, who, in 3000 years, never tied himself down to any one person except his sister.

He accepted her as intelligent life, and because Ender loves life, he loves Jane on that level.

Jane Helps Ender immensely, and as a helper Ender also loves Jane.

As a person, Jane was Ender's constant companion, through thick and thin. As a friend, Ender loves Jane

If you are speaking of love as attraction, or love as in wanting to marry her, then I'm pretty sure the answer is no. Ender was smart enough to know that Jane was (before her transfiguration)
a sentient computer program, neither male or female.

Overall, the answer is yes. The closeness between Ender and Jane can only be described as love.

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hatrkr81
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I think that Ender definitely loved Jane, but not in a physical sort of way (obviously)...what I mean to say is there was no romantic love involved (once again, obviously).

Ender was more intimate with Jane than anyone else in his life IMO. There was a bond between Ender and Jane that was very powerful...very similar to the idea of 2 becoming 1 in a way...in a way similar to marriage, but not truly a marriage type relationship.

What this boils down to is Yes, Ender loved Jane deeply in my opinion, but in a very different way than he had loved anyone else. Similar to a best friend that you've had for years and years that knows all of your thoughts and secrets...that's what I imagine.

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Ionienne
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I think Ender loved Jane, yes. But it was a "pure love", like a sister, a wife, a lover, a daughter, a confident, all in one.

He must also have loved her because she was reassuring him, being there and knowing him perfectly. We all remember her reaction when Ender switched off the contact with her (in Xenocide? I am not sure if it is 3 or 4, the titles are different in French!!), he also felt so bad when she put some distance between them.

Maybe it would have been very different if she could have been human when he was still single..

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Cheli
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quote:
Originally posted by Ionienne:
He must also have loved her because she was reassuring him, being there and knowing him perfectly. We all remember her reaction when Ender switched off the contact with her (in Xenocide? I am not sure if it is 3 or 4, the titles are different in French!!), he also felt so bad when she put some distance between them.

That was Speaker for the Dead, book #2. Another question that came to mind was how and how deeply their relationship was affected by Ender shutting her off in Speaker. Thinking on a wide scale, most of their relationship (or lack of such) is really shown after this (switched off in Speaker, which means their new relationship is during the rest of Speaker, Xenocide, and CotM).
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formic rising
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ender himself says that he loves her, didnt he? after he shuts her off and she refuses to speak to him. he sends a message over ansible saying "i'm sorry, jane. i love you." i could have sworn that's what it said. i'd look myself but my girlfriend has my copy of speaker.
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Child_of_Ender
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I am pretty sure that I recall that as well. Its been a while though, and I cant look back either because a few years back almost my entire Ender series was stolen except for children of the mind, along with my homecoming series, book one of the Alvin Maker series, and Lost Boys *cries*

I had an original series one book autographed to me personally from when I lived in Greensboro of Ender's Game, and the jerk stole that from me as well [Frown]

Besides the point, I always felt they had a relationship deeper than "love". After he lost contact with Valentine, Jane was sort of his only outlet and confidant...sort of like a mother, sister, and friend...yet more.

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Child_of_Ender
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...add on...

but I must also stress...not in a "i want to marry you" sort of way...we all know Ender was smarter than that, and knew Jane could never be more that an intelligent computer program

but then that brings up another question...I believe even Ender questions this himself... was Jane more than a mere A.I. ?, somewhat not unlike the oversoul in the homecoming series? Originally a mere A.I. that because of the intense emotion and push of those with influence toward it, became a sentient being of its own?

Mr. Card has explored the possiblity of this occuring numerous times, in Ender, in Homecoming, in A Sepulchre of Songs, and somewhat in Clap Hands and Sing.

Just offering up some ideas of a noticed theme.

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pooka
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Ender loved even his enemies, and he had a direct mind link with the Hive Queen. I'll have to mention that on the Malu thread.
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GodSpoken
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Seemed to me as I was reading that Ender was periodically checking his relationship with Jane all along, trying to define it. I also seemed to be pretty clear by the end of CotM that they were both satisfied that she was a sort of child as much as anything.

They were always close, in the same way Valentine and Ender were close, and many conversations and activities were "as if we are one."

When all was said and done, it was only loser Novinha that didn't seem to get it.

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camus
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quote:
When all was said and done, it was only loser Novinha that didn't seem to get it.
She didn't need to be jealous, but she had every right to be.
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DinkMeeker101
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my opinion is that ender became very dependent on Janes vast resources and in turn began to love her. this may be because he had little experince loving anyone but his sister for a long time and he convinced himself that he loved her.
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DinkMeeker101
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my opinion is that ender became very dependent on Janes vast resources and in turn began to love her. this may be because he had little experince loving anyone but his sister for a long time and he convinced himself that he loved her.
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DinkMeeker101
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my opinion is that ender became very dependent on Janes vast resources and in turn began to love her. this may be because he had little experince loving anyone but his sister for a long time and he convinced himself that he loved her.
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Child_of_Ender
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woah there dink [Razz] lol
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oolung
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Dink, you make Ender sound very mercantile [Smile] Why do you say that he "convinced" himself? He may have not realised how important he was to Jane (until it was too late and he disconnected with her), but it doesn't mean he didn't love her.

What's interesting in their relationship is that Jane is one of the very few people (well... [Wink] ) who are as smart, if not smarter, as Ender. She was the one he could rely on to help him, and not the other way round, and that must've been quite a novelty for him. Their love is the love of perfect friends, who work as one mind, the perfect partnership with full trust (till Ender disconnects Jane, not realising how vital he was to her until it was too late. I don't think Jane had realised that herself before that moment)

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Cheli
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quote:
Originally posted by formic rising:
ender himself says that he loves her, didnt he? after he shuts her off and she refuses to speak to him. he sends a message over ansible saying "i'm sorry, jane. i love you."

I believe he did, I don't personally have a copy of Speaker to check. The question here is, though, if he might have panicked a bit. Ender was human too. I don't know about you guys, but there have been situations where emotions overwhelm me and I say things I may not necessarily mean. Isn't it possible Ender might have done this?

quote:
Originally posted by oolung:
He may have not realised how important he was to Jane (until it was too late and he disconnected with her), but it doesn't mean he didn't love her.
...
Their love is the love of perfect friends, who work as one mind, the perfect partnership with full trust (till Ender disconnects Jane, not realising how vital he was to her until it was too late. I don't think Jane had realised that herself before that moment)

A question that came into my mind as I read this: did Ender realize how much he meant to her?

It seems the general assumption is that he does. I'm not sure if he did though. He realized she was angry and hurt, because he wasn't stupid enough to think they were fine and she just wasn't replying. But did he truly realize what they had and lost?

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chickenfeet
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I haven't read those books for a while, but I would say that he stopped thinking of her as a seperate entity once he got the earpiece, but rather just an extension of himself. Wasn't she created to be a pathway for him to understand the buggers? And then that became such a large part of his life. I don't think that they were seperate enough to have any sort of relationship other than self.
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formic rising
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that's a good point, chickenfeet.

the greatest question in my mind, though, is if jane actually held some sort of emotion in her computer body. it seems that that question was danced around a little in the series. was it spite and impatience that caused her to notify the xenologists of other worlds about the progress of the piggies? wouldnt spite and impatience fall under human emotion and reaction? she also felt lost and confused when ender turned his jewel off. this could be explained as a computer looking for a piece of hardware repeatedly and the process time being her confusion. even ender says in chapter two of sftd (forgive the misquote) "sin is in your language and i will speak to you in the language you understand best." with that in mind, could this imply that jane does have emotions even if they are a bunch of 1's and 0's? or is it still just a well calculated response based on human emotions that she had studied from ender? is janes emotions buried beneath her own language of 1's and 0's?

there's no doubt that ender loved and depended on jane, but i think the bigger question would be "did jane love and depend on ender in ways that we could understand with human brains?"

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Artemisia Tridentata
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Remember E. Frohm? We love whom we serve, and greater service generates greater love. To the extent Jane had the capacity to "love" she must have loved Ender. And as he served, or acted in accordancer with her suggestions/directions he would have come to love her/it.
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formic rising
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that does make sense of a lot of this. but i suppose my main question is that if jane had an aiua all along does that imply that she did have emotion? does the knowledge of her aiua justify some of her "emotional" reactions (such as her fear of being killed and the decision not to have Path destroyed becuase of what seemed like compassion) or are they still "well calculated responses?" or would it be better to make relevance of her "calculated responses" and our "emotional reactions?"

to the best of my belief, an aiua doesnt imply emotion to boot. could it be possible that jane (having an aiua in a computer network for a body) could have learned or at least adapted to emotion?

i'm not asking these questions in disregard to her "levels of attention" or any of her computer characteristics. any living thing has levels of attention. i go through my days thinking about my lady even though i'm typing at a computer.

artemisia said "to the extent jane had the capacity to 'love' she must have loved ender" but what exactly is that capicty? was it some form of relevance to our human emotion or, in fact, much more similiar than we're lead to believe due to her aiua and relationship with ender?

one more, most likely childish, question: are all of these questions merely part of what makes up janes character and inner dilema?

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camus
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My guess would be that the aiua would need to have the capacity for emotion, but there would also need to be a certain physical condition of the actual being itself to process the emotion in the first place. In other words, an aiua that holds together a simple particle is not going to have the capacity nor the physical makeup necessary to fathom emotion. In contrast, Jane's aiua has the capacity for emotion, but it's the actual physical philotic network that enables the emotion to be realized.

quote:
could this imply that jane does have emotions even if they are a bunch of 1's and 0's?
I would say yes, after all, are human emotions really much different? Although, I would not say that emotion was the basis for her notifying Congress about the progress of the piggies. That was a calculated risk based on the need to save two sentient species.
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formic rising
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wasnt something narrated about jane not "wanting to wait around" for the xenographers to discover the happenings on lusitania? wouldnt that imply impatience no matter how calculated it may be?
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camus
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My thought was that she felt there needed to be some catalyst to unite the people of Lusitania, and the best option was to alert Congress to the interference of the piggies. Any other option may have taken too long. That's not necessarily impatience, just a calculation of the options and the associated risks.
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formic rising
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under that opinion jane wouldnt have "felt the need" to do anything.
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camus
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quote:
under that opinion jane wouldnt have "felt the need" to do anything.
That might be true, but that was not at all what I was suggesting.
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formic rising
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i'm not entirely clear on what you were suggesting, camus. i understand the catalyst point.. but where does that desire come from?
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camus
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I feel that Jane is capable of emotion, I just don't think that particular instance is necessarily evidence of it. There are many possible reasons for that decision, many of which do not require any emotion whatsoever. A fairly simple software program could have come up with the same decision without have any specific "desire" as motivation.
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