posted
Who do you think controlled the other? Peter or Valentine?
Edit: Don't say "They controlled eachother." That is the easy way out. If you think they controlled eachother to some degree, who moreso?
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
Maybe Peter thought he controlled Valentine and she just let him continue to think that? I hesitate to say that she controlled him because the way I read the character she wouldn't have wanted to.
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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I think that Valentine was in control of the relationship, but I do not think she controled Peter. I think, though, that she realized Peter was going to try to control her, and so she took actions to prevent that, which required manipulating Peter in several ways.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
I think Peter was definetly trying to control Val, but Val just didn't care who was controlling whom. Peter got her to write as Demosthenes, and she did, so he thought he was controlling her, but she just liked doing it. She did it for the heck of it, and she liked the idea of it, but she had no problem breaking away from Peter when she wanted to. Val told herself she didn't WANT to control Peter, and she left because she didn't want to risk him getting more control over her. Because she knew he was going to become a very major politician.
Val's just not the kind of person who cares about controlling others to get power. She just wanted to leave Peter and be with Ender, and live happily.
Posts: 464 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I think you rigged the question. Control is rarely about one person holding the reigns over another. People influence each other constantly. There is no doubt that Valentine influenced Peter in massive ways. Peter went from an animal torturing psychopath to a productive leader largely because of Valentine. She just did it with subtlty. Peter lacked this subtlty and so his influence is called control. If I were to rate which was more effective in the long run, I would say Valentine.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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I thought peters change to altruism was a strange transition throughout the series, I still dont quite understand it. In the beginning of Enders Game I had him pegged to be the next Hitler. At the end of the book he is loved
Posts: 473 | Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
I don't know. I knew a guy once who was amazingly like Peter. He could easily have been another Hitler, or another Stalin. He could be horribly cruel. On the other hand, most of the times he thought his horrid cruelty was just because it would make the world better. Peter realized, finally, that there was a limit to what being unnecessarily cruel would get him. It isn't that he became completely nice. He still did, unsavory, things. He had Bead to do alot of the dirty work for him, and dozens of other agents we'll never even know about. Still, while Peter may have wated the power of running the world, he seemed to understand the responsibilities that come with that power, and that, ultimately, is what made him a good leader.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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