posted
Now, I doubt I'm the first person to bring this up, but I am doing this to gather opinios and information Here's my point. Just reply your thoughts on it.
In Ender's Game, Card makes it clear that Ender understands everyone he meets very, very thoroughly. He knows who they are, how they think, what they do, why they do it, and what motivates them. All of it. Isn't this exactly what you do with Ender when you read the book? You know what he's thinking, what he's doing. You know why he does it. In the end, you can't Blame Ender for anything he does, however unforgivable it may be. Then, after thinking about it, you realize that Ender feels exactly the same way about every other person he has had to hurt. Foremost the buggers and Stilson, and more and more as the stories unfold in the three sequels.
Ender's game is almost like Card speaking (As a speaker for the dead, of course) the death of Ender, as is defined in the sequels. Funny enough, I first read this in one of the novel's attacking reviews.
Pretty much.... That. I don't know if he did that intentionally or if it just happened like that. Once again, I doubt that this is a new concept. In the case that this is an overly asked question, don't get mad at me. This is NOT a spam topic. Anyways, please put anything you have to say down. I love new viewpoints.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Nov 2008
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posted
Off the top of my head (it's been a while since I've read it), I can't think of anything Ender did that I would consider unforgivable. Yes, he killed Stilson, and Bonzo, and the buggers. But with Stilson and Bonzo, his intent wasn't to kill them, it was to win that fight, and all successive fights. (The way he speaks of Bonzo afterwards shows, to me, that he knew he'd killed him but didn't mean to.) With the buggers, he didn't know it was real. This to me is one of the most tragic aspects of Ender; that he carries around so much guilt, yet I don't see him as guilty. And I seem to remember later (in another book?) that he talks about the fact that he didn't know, and that it didn't matter to him that he didn't know, he's still just as guilty. I never saw it that way.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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And knowing Ender, he could never forgive himself. He seriously would have known Ender the same way as you or I know him. He'd understand that he had killed two proud parents' son and that to them, he would be seen as a murderer. He would have known How his action would have hurt so many others, how it truly was a murder to some.
However, even knowing that, he still did it. And even so, I can't accuse him. Bonzo is to Ender as Ender is to the reader. Ender's act of killing Bonzo would be equivalent to the reader killing Ender. Well, mentally and morally, that is. Ender knew all of his comrades, enemies, and victims as well as any reader knew Ender from reading the book. He simply had the ruthlessness to do what he felt needed to be done.
I forget what I was trying to say..... Oh, yes. I was just elaborating.
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posted
I guess the point of my previous post is that you are correct; I empathized with him enough that I don't blame him for anything.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
I don't hold Ender blameless for Stilson and Bonzo. He was a ruthless killer; it was what the military wanted and made him to be. The tragedy of Ender isn't just in his guilt over killing the buggers without awareness, but in the violence that balances his empathy: the terrible grokking of both murder and love in a single soul.
Ender redeems himself in the end, but he needed redemption. His personality had a null value, but his actions were a net harm to the universe until he restored the buggers and helped to save the pequeninos.
This is a new reading for me; I just finished Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide again. I think perhaps we were meant to excuse Ender for killing Stilson and Bonzo, but why should we? OSC makes sure his children are as intelligent and responsible as adults, so other than the fact that the powerful men of Earth weren't finished using Ender, why should he have faced no consequences for his two earliest killings? Ender knows he bears the blame for those deaths and it's what contains his violence in the future. (It's how he knows he would have killed the buggers even if he hadn't thought it was a game.)
But I agree with the OP - it's fair to call the Ender saga a Speaking for his character. But I don't think the Ender books form some kind of apologia for murder. They might represent the difficulty (practical impossibility) of atoning it. Mostly they should make us afraid of genetically manipulating humans for desired characteristics. Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I don't think we so much empathize (sp?) with Ender as we view him in context of "if it were me". We as people are faced with difficult decisions often in life, and see ourselves in him. While we would like to always do the right thing, sometimes the right thing isn't always the best thing overall. So...when Ender commits his crimes, we look more towards his motives than the actual nature of his crime. With this view, even though he harmed people and species, we can still see that he is trying to do the right thing. Which in turn, we can so readily relate to ourselves and in part forgive ourselves for the wrongs we've done while trying to do right. And I think that could have alot to do with why, while reading, we forgive murder so easily when it pertains to Ender. These are just my off the top of my head thoughts though, and of course, an opinion. Posts: 115 | Registered: Apr 2008
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quote: This is a new reading for me; I just finished Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide again. I think perhaps we were meant to excuse Ender for killing Stilson and Bonzo, but why should we? OSC makes sure his children are as intelligent and responsible as adults, so other than the fact that the powerful men of Earth weren't finished using Ender, why should he have faced no consequences for his two earliest killings? Ender knows he bears the blame for those deaths and it's what contains his violence in the future. (It's how he knows he would have killed the buggers even if he hadn't thought it was a game.)
This is an interesting point. I don't know whether we should excuse Ender's actions. The children in the book are intelligent and responsible for their actions. But they still are children being manipulated by adults. Perhaps we can't excuse Ender's actions, but like he did for so many others, we should be able to forgive and understand them.
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