quote:Originally posted by Aris Katsaris: If someone slaps a person, and the other person pulls out a gun and kills him, the argument "So? It's still aggression." seems to me extremely deficient.
It is, because a slap is a little bit different than a prolonged aggressive bodily assault where the intent isn't to slap a face but rather to beat a person down.
In these circumstances the perp of the violence might get knifed or just hit wrong in the windpipe or sommat and if they're killed as a result of this this doesn't make the victim a monster, yeah?
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quote: If OSC was still politically sane as he was when he first wrote Ender's Game, he'd have realized that the attitude of the initial book was correct: put to trial the NEGLIGENT ADULTS.
This is exactly what happened in Ender in Exile...
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Steve/Bluewizard: If by "bleeding heart liberal" you mean U.S. Law regarding self defense, then guilty as accused. Once the imminent danger / immediate threat of lethal physical harm is removed, one is no longer allowed to use lethal force. If you wrestle a gun away from someone, and break free, you can't turn and shoot them with it and call it self defense. It's not my opinion - it's the law.
I suggest you educate yourself on the law promptly -- it's good citizenship, which hopefully your right-wing viewpoints won't prevent you from embracing.
He has every right to defend himself, and he has ever right to defend himself beyond the level of assault directed at him.
Not legal right, no. Unless you're referring to some sort of magic right one gets when they decide to watch Fox news four hours a day?
Xann: most six year old kids keep their body count pretty low.
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Kamp101, you are vaguely right in your interpretation of 'Self-Defense' law, but only vaguely so.
In Ender's case, the 'imminent danger/immediate threat of physical harm' was not removed, not the way Ender framed it. If he has simply knocked Stilson down, then the fight would have continued later and would have probably escalated now that Stilson knew Ender had some capacity for self-defense. Next time Stilson would have had a bigger gang, and twisted the circumstances very much in his favor. Consequently, if Ender did not end this and all future fight, he would have simply been provoking greater hostility and a greater level of risk in the next fight.
Next, you are allowed to use more force than you are attacked with. You aren't obligated to stand with an attacker and exchange blows. You can use whatever force is necessary to STOP the assault on your person, not just hold it at bay. That frequently means using more force, even extreme force, to stop the attack as quickly and cleanly as possible.
Remember that Ender was being attacked by a gang, who could have very easily have harmed Ender substantially, and even accidentally killed him. Ender is in no way legally obligated to tolerate an assault like that.
As soon as Stilson attacked, he broke the law. He commited a crime against Ender and a crime against society, and Ender had every right to defend himself.
That's what Ender did, but he framed in the framework of winning the whole war, not just winning that one battle. He did just stop this assault, he stop all assault. He made the idea of a potential assault against him to be of such extreme danger to the assaulter, that no one would dare try it. He was a big picture kind of guy.
Now, he did not intend to kill Stilson. Ender said himself he wasn't trained in hand to hand combat and didn't understand full the impact of what he was doing. He defended himself with a specific strategy that I think would have held up in court.
Further, we do not generally hold 6 year olds accountable for their action in the legal sense. Ender was a threat to no one, who was not an imminent threat to him. He attacked no one, he defended himself against an unprovoked and illegal assault.
But he defended himself with a particular strategy. A strategy intended to stop all future attacks. That is a legal precedent that has already played out in court. If a person has a history of attacking people, and specifically of attacking you, and that person has a clear intend and pattern of escalation, and a clear intend of not stopping, then you can defend yourself without an imminent threat if the person come near you. Of course, this is not easy to establish in court. But it is a valid defense.
And I think given Ender's age, his mental framework at the moment, he would surely have had a valid legal defense if this matter ever went to court.
What you seem to be proposing it to turn the perpetrator into the victim and the victim into the perpetrator. If someone breaks the law and commits an illegal assault, they have chosen their path, and they have to accept the consequences.
And let me say that Stilson was not intending to trample on Enders flower beds, he meant to do Ender bodily harm, and that is sufficient cause for Ender to defend himself.
But Ender defended himself on a grander scale. He defended against all future attacks, and I think that is also a valid defense if you can make a reasonable case for the likelihood of those future attacks. In fact, not even the likelihood that Stilson would attack Ender in the future, but solely on Ender's belief that those attack would come.
That is the difference between assault and battery. If I truly belief you are about to harm me, then you have already committed assault. If you do harm me, then you have committed battery. The mere genuine belief in imminent threat is sufficient cause to defend yourself. And Ender believed that future threat and future attacks would surely come, and he was justified in defending against those attack.
Admittedly though, he got carried away. But again with out some type of training or experience in fighting, Ender had no way of knowing the potential out come. He did not murder Stilson, Stilson accidentally died while Ender was defending himself. Stuff like that happens, but if the perpetrator had never broken the law and attacked, they would not now be lying dead. When you choose to commit a crime, that crime comes with a range of potential consequences. If you break into my home while I'm asleep, you run the risk of getting shot. If you don't want to get shot, then don't break the law and put yourself in that situation.
As to Stilson's family, well Jeffery Dalmer and Charles Manson both had families too. That doesn't mean they didn't willfully commit crimes. Crime comes with risk. As a famous TV detective was fond of saying, if you can't do the time, then don't do the crime.
quote: This is exactly what happened in Ender in Exile...
With, seemingly, an authorial condemnation.
quote:Besides, the character's thoughts and feelings on events in the story don't necessarily match the author's
I've not read Exile, but I've read enough of Orson Scott Card to recognize his self-insertional diatribes.
Signs of recognition: That the other guy doesn't offer any rebuttal but merely admires the imparted wisdom of the character. That the character goes into the generic life-lesson rather than the specific actions of the characters. "He chose. Just because he thought I was weaker than him, just because he thought I couldn't protect myself, doesn't mean it stopped being his fault."
Such a sentence seems specific on the surface but in reality it is RIDICULOUSLY abstract, meant to apply to nations and individuals alike.
If they'd stayed at the specific, instead of trying to impart a political diatribe, OSC and Ender would have realized that the sentence "he chose" is ridiculous when referring to a 6 year old "choosing" a battle to the death.
But because in reality OSC didn't *really* intend the lesson to be about Stilson and Ender in particular, but about the USA or Israel and whichever enemies they currently have in the Islamic world, he becomes ludicrous with such proclamations as 6-year-olds "choosing" their own deaths because they're bullies. And the adults in charge not being to blame for this.
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posted
Jon: fight off a gang is not a war, and one cannot legally (or, in my opinion, morally) declare war on groups of people as a single individual. If we take it as an analogy for nations, again we're on really odd ground -- I had to destroy the nation I had already beat so they couldn't hurt me again, or so their allies would leave me alone. What is destruction in this case, once the nation's ability to wage war has been removed -- genocide? Complete eradication of infrastructure? I can't think of anything in this category that wouldn't or shouldn't count as a war crime.
Blue/Wizard: Use of force is justified when a person reasonably believes that it is necessary for the defense of oneself or another against the immediate use of unlawful force. However, a person must use no more force than appears reasonably necessary in the circumstances.
Force likely to cause death or great bodily harm is justified in self-defense only if a person reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm.
There are differences in domains, provided for by the law. If Ender had been attacked by a group of criminals in his own home, and they had broken into his home without invitation, and the same thing occurred, he would have been more than justified.
There are two reasons why Ender would have been convicted of murder/manslaughter, and they're available from his introspection text in the book:
1) It didn't occur to him that Stilson didn't take a fight like this seriously, that he wasn't prepared for a truly desperate blow.
2) For a moment, the others backed away and Stilson lay motionless. They were all wondering if he was dead. Ender, however, was trying to figure out a way to forestall vengeance. To keep them from taking him in a pack tomorrow.
He had already come to the conclusion that the danger to himself was less than he had estimated, and that the danger he faced was not present, but future danger. He failed to meet several criteria of most self-defense laws:
As to the extent of the right: First, when threatened violence exists, it is the duty of the person threatened to use all prudent and precautionary measures to prevent the attack; for example, if by closing a door which was usually left open, one could prevent an attack, it would be prudent, and perhaps the law might require, that it should be closed in order to preserve the peace, and the aggressor might in such case be held to bail for his good behavior. Secondly, if after having taken such proper precautions, a party should be assailed, he may undoubtedly repel force by force, but in most instances cannot, under the pretext that he has been attacked, use force enough to kill the assailant or hurt him after he has secured himself from danger.
Excerpts of sample self defense law are from the Electric Law Library:
posted
From the bullying I've seen or experienced, I can't see how kamp101's points can lead to anything but an eventual confrontation where the victim gets seriously injured. The whole point is to accept the legal verdict of inflicting more force than necessary on a relentless bully in exchange for instilling in him a REAL sense of fear that his actions have consequences. What else is going to happen? Are you going to suspend him? Give him detention?
There are many ways to remove an enemy's power to harm you. It doesn't require eradication of the enemy whether that be a nation or a person. Later in Ender's Game, Ender decided faced another gang only this time he realized the power emanated from the other launchies, and realized some of those launchies were actually decent people. But that's the problem: there isn't going to be an Alai or Shen in every gang or school.
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I hate it when people take Enders inner thoughts and apply them blanketly to Orsen Scott Card's inner beliefs. We don't know what OSC's inner beliefs are unless he tells them. He gives plenty of opportunity in his op-ed pieces of which many make me cringe as well. However When Card is writing Ender, he is only writing Ender. He is writing the thoughts and memories of a boy who has been traumatized and is still suffering. Ender's inner thoughts are window into his method of reconciling his actions with morality. I think OSC did a splendid job of giving us exactly that. In E in E we get to see how Ender's attitude about his own actions transform from the beginning of the book to the end.
Please judge Ender based on Ender and OSC on OSC. The two are not intertwined.
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They kind of are... He frequently takes over characters and uses them to put out his point of view. He does it all...the... TIME.
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But because in reality OSC didn't *really* intend the lesson to be about Stilson and Ender in particular, but about the USA or Israel and whichever enemies they currently have in the Islamic world, he becomes ludicrous with such proclamations as 6-year-olds "choosing" their own deaths because they're bullies. And the adults in charge not being to blame for this.
It's totally absurd that you can claim to know that that's the point that OSC was trying to make. There's no evidence to support that claim. It's an interesting opinion that you have but nothing more.
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Show me where OSC speaking as OSC says its ok to use overwhelming force to kill somebody when one is no longer in immediate danger.
This is all kind of silly, especially considering Ender's less than subtle reversal at the end of EinE.
The beauty of good fiction is the author's words are only half the story. The other half is what the reader brings to the table. I can relate in some ways to Ender, which may mean I get a different interpretation of his thoughts and action than somebody else. That's ok. Only a narcissistic author would declare his interpretation of the charachter is the only one. From everything I've read, I can't consider OSC a narcissist.
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When a child is bullied their whole life and eventually commits suicide (as has happened), we do not blame the victim, but the oppressor. When a child is bullied thier whole life and eventually kills his oppressor, we blame the vitcim... Does this actually make any sense to you whatsoever?
And yes I have been bullied... and yes my life is colored because of that... and no I have not commited suicide, and no I have not killed anyone, At least, I dont think I have.
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Steve, have you read the World Watch columns? OSC justifies preemptive war all the time. There is a parallel, quite explicit, in the Enderverse books between individual homicide and war, and that parallel also seems to exist between the books and the OSC-as-OSC essays justifying preemptive war.
posted
Having just re-read the opening chapter of EG, there's a bit to be said for every argument made.
The killing of Stilson, while accidental and unnecessary was done to send a message, and a direct response to an imminent threat.
Obviously this is a fictional situation, and I think that it's not necessary to pull out the US law on self-defense.
As for Ender's moral reprehensibility for saying Stilson was at fault.. He was. Stilson attacked Ender with a gang, while Ender was alone. Ender set out to protect himself with an eye to the future, as he expected he had to live with these people for the rest of his youth, and didn't want to be picked on.
The boy (who is again fictional) didn't deserve death, nor did Ender say he did. Ender said Stilson was at fault for making Ender defend himself. He didn't say his course of action was justified, etc etc etc.
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I also was bullied as a kid. I anticipate that almost everyone here was -- it's sort of what makes you connect with Ender's Game when you read it when you're young.
This is not a "blame the victim" issue, and it is not analogous to normal bullying. Ender one-shotted Stilson. With one kick he put him on the ground in a condition where he couldn't fight back. The gang did not advance to attack him - they stood there and gawked at Stilson. Then Ender chose to continue applying brutal force to inflict grievous injury on Stilson (potentially lethal injury, which he acknowledges in his reflection on the subject) when the imminent, immediate source of danger had been removed.
Ender was justified in his initial action, but not in the continuation thereof. I still argue that his interpretation of the event is wrong, also -- that one-shotting a bully as a twerp of a kid is sufficient to humiliate the bully and convince the bully's gang that he's not a tough guy and they shouldn't follow or listen to him.
It was not Stilson's fault that he died. He did not attempt to apply lethal force and create a situation in which Ender would have been justified in killing him. Even outside of the scope of legal or moral responsibility, and pure causation, Stilson took the same actions taken by countless bullies throughout the history of mankind. The exception case here was Ender's decision -- his course of action.
The only reason people don't consider Ender to be a monster for having done it and are willing to blame Stilson is that Ender kills Stilson while applying about 3% of the force and fury applied by Ralphie against his bully in A Christmas Story, which stretches belief more than just a tad. [[Edited to fix the typos dreadfully preserved in the next post...]]
quote:Originally posted by kamp101: [QB] Steve/Bluewizard: If you wrestle a gun away from someone, and break free, you can't turn and shoot them with it and call it self defense. It's not my opinion - it's the law./QB]
I don't know the law, so I'll have to take your word for it. But if what you are saying is true, that's a bad law.
If someone attacks you, with a gun, and you are LUCKY enough to get the gun away from him, you should shoot. Aim to kill and shoot without a second thought.
What else would you do? Just aim the gun and threaten? Throw the gun down? Run away?
Any gun instructor in America will tell you, never aim a gun at someone unless your intent is to pull the trigger (law enforcement officers excluded, of course).
Running away might be a good option, but you better be damn sure he can't catch you from behind!
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quote:Any gun instructor in America will tell you, never aim a gun at someone unless your intent is to pull the trigger
"Any?" Well, my very own said that I am not to point a gun at someone unless I am prepared to kill them, and never point your gun at something you are not prepared to destroy.
This is well different than not being 'allowed' to point a gun at someone without the intent to pull the trigger. In a hypothetical home invasion scenario, I am going to be pointing my gun at the hypothetical aggressor whether or not my intent is at that point at time pull the trigger. The actions of the aggressor at that point will determine whether or not I will continue to the trigger-pulling intent phase.
I'm sure going to have the gun pointed at them before then, suh.
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posted
Gun instructors aren't lawyers or priests or moral philosophers. And what's up with this: (law enforcement officers excluded, of course). -- it's reasonable for an officer of the law to hold someone at bay with the threat to shoot, but not for a citizen to do so?
If you get a gun away from someone, and they're not doing anything that can be interpreted as intent or effort to get it back, you can't legally shoot them and call it self defense. If they do lunge at you at all (they don't necessarily have to reach for it) -- you can fire. State laws may differ on this, but depending on your skill with the gun and/or the situation, it may be necessary to demonstrate desire to disable rather than kill (but this isn't clear cut -- the below the waist thing is just in movies). If you have other family members in the home, there's no way in hell anyone would convict you of wrong-doing.
Samprimary: in a home invasion situation, you can most likely just kill them. If I felt pretty safe, I sure wouldn't do it, but legally, anyone who is an intruder in your home (in some states/cases on your property at all), is considered an imminent danger until they leave. That's why in the south your police relatives will give you advice like "If someone's in your house, and you shoot'em, and they fall out the window, drag'em back in."
People should have to know all this before even owning a gun in my opinion, but I'm just one of those unreasonable "bleeding-heart" liberal types, I guess. I mean, after all, the whole grounds of needing a license for a car are that you can cause someone's unlawful or undeserved death through its misuse. A gun's certainly nothing like that...
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umberhulk: The bit about "I didn't have the skill to hurt them enough to prevent future attacks, yet not kill them" (pg. 32) [just below "I don't blame myself, you know..." "I'm responsible for killing Stilson and Bonzo and all the formics in the universe. But I'm not to blame."
It's a big change from:
"I killed ten billion buggers, who were as alive and wise as any man, who had not even launched a third attack against us, and no one thinks to call it a crime."
and
"All his crimes weighed heavy on him, the deaths of Stilson and Bonzo no heavier and no lighter than the rest."
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posted
Eh. I'm not sure that implies that killing Stilson was his intent. He might merely be saying that kicking him in the face was the only thing that made sense. And that he might be alive if he had the strength/training to hurt him some other way.
Of course, I still dont know all the context. And you could be right.
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posted
In the situation where someone attacks me with a gun, and I manage to get the gun away from him, there are circumstances where I am absolutely allowed to shot him.
Just because, I have his gun, doesn't mean the attack has stopped. If the perpetrator continues aggression, I will absolutely without reservation shoot him, because I know if he gets the gun back he will shoot me.
Even if the gun attacker appears to surrender or back off, if I feel this is merely a ploy to gain time and advantage, then despite the seeming passivity of the attacker, he still fully intend bodily harm to me, and I am fully justified in protection myself.
This gets down to my impression of the matter. Assault does not require physical contact, only the belief on the part of the victim that physical harm is likely and imminent. Though fairly, something, some action, has to provoke that belief.
Assault - 3. Law. a. An unlawful threat or attempt to do bodily injury to another. b. The act or an instance of unlawfully threatening or attempting to injure another.
Notice that threat alone constitutes 'Assault'. When physical contact occurs, then assault become battery.
Battery - b. Law. The unlawful and unwanted touching or striking of one person by another, with the intention of bringing about a harmful or offensive contact
Again, just because I have the gun, doesn't mean the attack is over. If I genuinely believe that the gun attacker still intends to do me bodily harm, in other words he is only fake surrendering, I am still warranted in defending myself. In fact, I might just shoot him in the knee for good measure, just to make sure he can't press his advantage before the police get there.
In a more hand-to-hand attack/defense situation, I absolutely do not have to stand there and trade blows with the attacker. I am able to use whatever force in necessary to STOP the attack on my person, and stop it immediately. I don't not have to allow myself to be attacked or injured in the name of fair play or the 'code of the playground'. I simply do not have to tolerate that.
If someone punches me, and I punch them back, that does not stop the attack. I have to response with overwhelming force to both destroy the attacker will and ability to continue the attack. So, yes indeed I am allowed to response with more force than I am attacked with.
And that is what Ender did, he used whatever force he felt was necessary to both stop the actually assault and the attacker will to continue the assault. Even as the attack went on, that was Ender's stated goal - to destroy the will to war.
Steve_G says -
"Show me where OSC speaking as OSC says its ok to use overwhelming force to kill somebody when one is no longer in immediate danger."
I'm shifting that statement into a new context to help me with a point. In this situation, Ender clearly saw very real and imminent danger. If he did not use overwhelming force, it could have provoke the gang into attacking. If he did not use overwhelming force, there was the very real possibility that an attack was imminent the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that.
Ender saw very real and proven risk every single day in the future; real proven risk because Stilson was a habitual bully. The longer Ender provokes the war, provoked continual battle after battle, the greater the risk of himself being injured. Further, as in real war, each battle improve the strategy of the attacker, and thereby increases the risk during the next attack. Further, future attacks increase in intensity as an act of vengeance and retribution.
You don't mildly defeat a bully without paying as extremely high price later, unless...as Ender did...you absolutely and completely defeat him the first time.
So, the point is, that Ender did not see the 'risk' stop. Just because Stilson was down, did not mean the danger was also 'down'. He was faced with two possible outcomes. Either his own actions make it worse and increased the very real danger, or his actions made it better and absolutely stopped all risk and danger to himself. He choose the later, and choose wisely in my view.
Yes, with absolute certainty I believe that Stilson was responsible for his own injuries. You simply can not go through life committing acts of unprovoked violence and not think that someday there will be a price to pay. You simply can not attack every geek and nerd you see on the mistake belief that you will never find someone willing to defend himself at all cost.
If you commit a crime, you have to accept that there will be consequences.
I absolutely do not subscribe to the boys-will-be-boy point of view when it comes to bullying. Bully's bully because they are allowed to, because no one intervenes to stop them. They absolutely 'walk the halls with impunity', because we allow them too.
And invariably, when someone defends themselves against a bully, it is the defender, not the offender, who is in trouble. This is because, it is far easier for the 'administration' to deal with the occasional defender than it is to confront the habitual bull. And especially so when, as in a school situation, the bully is popular in the eyes of the administration, and the nerd and geeks are on the fringe.
We've heard from both sides of the issue, and I absolutely believe that those who are defending Stilson, are very much in the 'blame the victim' camp. Stilson make a choice to engage in habitual violence, I have no sympathy that he came to a violent end that he himself provoked.
And I do have great sympathy for Ender in this circumstance because he was force to carry the knowledge and guilt that he was force by Stilson own action to defend himself and by that action, Stilson died.
Ender did not kill Stilson. Ender defended himself again an unprovoked and illegal attack from which he gave his attacker several opportunities to back out. As a result of that unprovoked attack, Stilson, who naturally assumed none of his victims posed any threat, died. But for the most part, Stilson died of his own stupidity, and his own bullying thuggery, of his own willful and unlawful choices.
He would be alive today, it he had simply NOT chosen to live a life of violence and thuggery.
posted
BlueWizard: IF you'll read what I wrote, you'll see I already pointed out that physical contact is not necessary (my use of the phrase "lunging at" being a proper justification"). If you refer to my earlier post where I posted the link to some example self-defense law, you'll also realize that the interpretation of the threat is qualified with words like "reasonable" (interpretation) "imminent" (threat) etc. I seriously doubt "I suspected it was only a fake surrender!" or "He might have attacked me in a week!" would hold up in court if you shot someone in those circumstances.
Continuing on... here's a paragraph you should internalize:
You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. You don't have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying.
I'll give that a chance to sink in.
Sunk in?
Now maybe?
Come on, at least by now!!
I don't care that Ender knocked the bully over with a kick. Punch him in the face! Throw him on the ground! Go ahead! I wouldn't have cared if he had kicked him once or twice in the ribs for good measure, really, after that. If he had the proper training and they were older kids, I would have wholly endorsed Ender choking Stilson out until he crapped himself and then stuffing him in a closet. It worked pretty well when Gene LeBell did it to Steven Seagal.
In any of those situations, my response would have been "Well, Stilson was asking for it." That's not what we're talking about, though - -- we're talking about a someone getting killed. By repeated kicks to the face, ribs, crotch, etc. By a 6 year old. As a response to bullying. When the imminent threat had been removed and Ender could have left that day while the kids were sitting around trying to figure out how bad Stilson was hurt after the first blow.
I mean, come on? How many stories do we have about bullies having their pathetic reign of childhood terror ended in one way or another? Almost all of them result in the bully getting humiliated. Other than in the situation with Ender, how many of them result in the bully getting killed? How can you even think that was a necessary course of action?
Ender's actions were not necessary.
Look at this:
quote:If someone punches me, and I punch them back, that does not stop the attack. I have to response with overwhelming force to both destroy the attacker will and ability to continue the attack. So, yes indeed I am allowed to response with more force than I am attacked with.
And that is what Ender did, he used whatever force he felt was necessary to both stop the actually assault and the attacker will to continue the assault. Even as the attack went on, that was Ender's stated goal - to destroy the will to war.
How many times do I have to deal with this?
1) You have to (strategically) and are justified (legally) in removing the immediate threat in self-defense situations -- whatever this takes.
2) You are not required to nor are you justified in removing all capacity for another party to hurt anyone again, up to and including their death at your hands, especially not if their crime so far is threatening to carry out "assault" or "battery."
3) Ender had already ended the current fight. Stilson was unable to continue, and his gang was standing around, shocked, trying to decide if Stilson was dead (previously quoted text). Ender made his decision to stop the bullying the next day(again, as quoted in the text.)
4) Whether or not Ender's decision would have been successful strategically is ambiguous at the very least. It's most likely effect would have been to have gotten him kicked out of his school (that is, without intervention from Graff, etc.) If he somehow miraculously stayed in school and had the opportunity to be confronted again, he may have faced kids who were hungry for revenge and were unwilling to split up and fight him one on one -- that's as likely if not more likely than simply cowering at the brutal weird kid. As I mentioned before, the kids who were standing around clueless might have jumped in to pull Ender off of Stilson, and a new fight with them would have ensued, when Ender could have just walked away.
Under your argument, a school shooter who singled out bullies would be justified in stopping future threats of assault. Don't be ridiculous.
posted
I think bulltying generally ends with the bully getting thrown is Juvy and/or growing up--not because they get defamed. And that the strategic success or lack of is ambigious period. Bernard was a different example than Stilson.
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posted
He kicked the kid in the balls while he was down. That's kind of harsh and goes against unwritten dude rules. He had already won.
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quote:In any of those situations, my response would have been "Well, Stilson was asking for it." That's not what we're talking about, though - -- we're talking about a someone getting killed.
So intent does not matter? You kill the guy with a kick to the balls while not at all intending to cause lethal harm, you're a monster?
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posted
Intent to harm/maim/potentially kill another kid makes you a pretty bad kid. It may not make you evil or a monster if you factor in issue of abuse / emotional distress, but it sure as hell does not make one a moral paragon.
And a sidestep here -- intent matters, but it's not everything. There's having intent, and then being reasonable in trying to carry out that intent. There are serious issues with good intentions coupled with a "ends justify the means" mentality, esp. w/r/t Graff in these books. There are intentions and then there are intelligent, reasonable means of trying to translate intentions into action.
Besides, quit this editing into snippets BS -- Ender kicked Stilson repeatedly, in the face, ribs, crotch, etc. while he was defenseless on the ground. Doing that and just putting someone in the hospital is really bad. If I had a kid who did that, I'd try to get them some serious psychiatric help -- we're talking about sociopathic level disproportionate response or weighing of the means to carry out some supposed "bully free existence" end.
And apologies for being long-winded, but one more thing has to be made clear -- just carrying out the action could be the result of all kinds of things. He was obviously a stressed out and abused kid (largely by Peter and Graff's plans for him, though you'd have to list the nu-Wiggin-parents as allowing the abuse to take place and being pretty god awful parents if you accept all the new practically-omniscient characteristics they've gotten in the new series). It was a bad thing to do, but it doesn't necessarily make him a monster. Looking back on it as an adult and saying he was not to blame and that Stilson chose to die makes him a monster. It's mostly an EIE issue.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Kamp101 here's a sentence you should internalize:
Nobody here said you have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. Nobody here said you have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. Nobody here said you have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. Nobody here said you have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying. Nobody here said you have to kill bullies to stop them from bullying.
If you had read what BlueWizard wrote, you would have realized that the four points you mention DO NOT CONTRADICT BlueWizard except for one thing:
quote:You are not required to nor are you justified in removing all capacity for another party to hurt anyone again
This is a loaded statement; I don't think it's true in general. But here's what I know about the specific situation:
Ender WANTED to beat the living hell out of Stilson. As you point out, Ender would be in legal trouble. Stilson would also be in trouble (who would not be dead, but instead seriously injured or hospitalized). Perhaps both would be suspended for an amount of time, and other disciplinary action would follow. Then a while later both are back in school (assuming nobody has been moved elsewhere) and everything is the same except for one thing: the bullying has stopped.
This is what would have been desirable, except for one thing: Stilson ended up dead. Why? Because Ender was untrained in the action he took and took it too far. So, did Ender, as you say, take unnecessary action? Of course, considering Stilson died. But why do you keep writing like Ender was going for Stilson's death? He only realized Stilson had probably died later on in battle school.
Let me say one other thing: The other main issue here is just our own experiences, our real life "data" if you will, are all different. So we all think things like, "This wouldn't have worked!" or "He didn't need to do this!". Look, there are all kinds of people out there; both the punks who quit after a little humiliation and the hardcore morons who corner you after school with machetes with three other kids. But yes, since we're dealing with a 6 year old kid, a lot of force was not needed...but little Ender could not have known that.
Posts: 56 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
A lot of what I said contradicts a lot of what Blue/Wizard said. I just re-read the post. Should I make a side by side list for you? Just look for key words like the use of "immediate" and "imminent" danger the time-line implied, and the condemnation of Stilson's choice of a "life of thuggery" and a lot of the other raving nonsense in that post.
"but little Ender could not have known that."
This is the contradiction that OSC can't write himself out of, that he TRIED to with that awful steel toed boots retcon --> how much force does it take for a 6 year old to kill another one, and how did Ender not know he was inflicting that much damage when he's a super genius? "Oh, poor little Ender, he had to hurt his bully so bad and he didn't even know he killed him!"
Think of the news headlines: "6 year old kills fellow classmate by kicking him repeatedly in the face and torso. Boy claims he didn't know he was applying enough force." How fast would that cycle through our newspapers and be cited as an example of how our society is falling apart? Try and find an example of any 6 year old killing another in recent times that's not a gun accident.
The implication of every argument leveled in Ender's defense is this stupid euphemism for maiming or killing, "removing all capacity to hurt again," "destroy[ing] the will to war." In the original continuity this was dealt with as humanity's mistake -- the admiral who tries to pre-emptively strike Lusitania to eradicate the threat of the descolada is laughed at when he says he was trying to do what Ender Wiggin would have done.
Suddenly the plot line of the old sequels is gone -- Ender looks back and thinks he did everything right, not that he was manipulated into committing murder and genocide by the adults, not that his actions against Stilson and Bonzo were crimes, but that he is not to blame.
Just think of what it would take for a 6 year old to kill another 6 year old by kicking him to death. Think of what it would look like. We're talking Irreversible levels of gore here. Oh he didn't know, and now he's so sad... the poor little guy!
Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I really wish OSC would make at least one post in this thread.
I'll say this again: "Removing the capacity to wage war" and "destroying the will to fight" =/= killing. What the novels investigate is what happens if the two coincide.
The following conclusion can be supported from the original novels: that humanity was not to blame for Ender's xenocide; however, it is responsible for the xenocide. Ender says in the original novels that even if he had known, he would still have done the same thing, although he would have been much less efficient in doing so. The great tragedy here is that all avenues of communication had failed, humanity had already been attacked twice, and there is no reason to assume it would not be attacked again. The Admiral who tries to destroy Lusitania is clearly at fault because he only looked at what Ender did and not why he did it. All avenues of approach had not been tried out, and even if the people of Lusitania said they had a better solution, it would make no difference. It does not compare to the situation that humanity was placed in the first novel.
Posts: 56 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by kamp101: It's a distinctly wrong claim. Ender is the only responsible party in this instance. I'm sorry, but how many people here were ever involved in bully situations? How many people on the planet earth? How many resorted to killing the bully to solve them?
It is not Stilson's fault that he got killed. It would be Stilson's fault if he got punched in the face and given a black eye, choked unconscious, reported to the teacher, etc. These are all acceptable responses to the situation. They are normal, human responses. They make one say, "Well he had it coming."
Killing Stilson was morally wrong, AND strategically wrong. As Ender proves later in the book himself, the best way to deal with a bully is to humiliate them (he does this with Bernard and the whole "watch your butt" thing). There he acts like a reasonable human being and solves the problem in a moral and strategically sound way.
The fact that Ender can't look back and see he made the wrong decision means his character is currently being written in a really stupid way. Oh wait, Ender can't make mistakes, because that would break his character, and we can't have him actually develop now, can we?
If you actually think Stilson is at fault for getting killed for acting like a normal 6 year old bully, you are a morally depraved individual, and I hope Mr. Card's writing hasn't contributed to putting you in this state. You should look up the law regarding self defense, excessive force, what measures are merited based on the threat, etc. and think of what it means in moral terms to act to kill someone after having already overpowered them.
The Bonzo thing is a grey area -- it only works through suspension of disbelief. You have to believe that one kid can kill and older stronger kid with one well placed headbutt. I think the odds of that happening are about 0.0002% personally, and as the fight is written, Ender kills Bonzo while taking acceptable self-defense actions.
To summarize the fault / causation one more time --as people always seem to have trouble with this (google Aristotle and his different causes as a starting point-- Stilson started a situation in which Ender killed him, but he did not start a situation in which a predictable or reasonable or morally defensible response from Ender involved Stilson getting killed. Ender made the decision and performed the actions that resulted in Stilson dying. This is not a bear poking situation, but one in which there are moral and legal responsibilities that Ender abandoned and chose not to abide by, his deviations from them in this case far, far, far, far, far outweighing the deviations from such responsibilities inherent in the actions taken by Stilson.
He is still clinging to the fact that he made the right decision, strategically, morally, whatever. When he considers all things and conflates all motivations he decides it was the right action. We are somehow supposed to overlook this because he feels really bad about having to have made the right decision?
Kamp101, hi, how are you doing? I read your post and it got me thinking that you are so completely convinced you have the moral higher ground that it disgusts me.
Let me tell you something about myself: I believe that every man, woman, boy and girl is directly responsible for everything that happens to them. However, I do not believe in the slightest that what I think is the highest moral ground. Unlike you, I consciously decide on my ethics. And yes, that means I consciously accept the responsiblity for my ethics.
That being said, let me tell you another thing about myself: I was bullied through middle school and grade school. Big deal, right? Millions of kid's get bullied every day. Why should I be any different?
But I am different. Maybe it's a pathology, maybe it's just hate, but I think ender did the world a favor by polishing off those incredibly stupid, idiotic, immature bastards.
I sympathize with those kids who have horrible lives and decide their not going to put up with it any more and blow the brains out of those bullies that are so undisputably evil.
You might think I'm crazy. You might think I was one of those loner kids with no friends who everybody picked on. You're absolutely right. But that doesn't make me less of a person and that doesn't make bullies less stupid.
Bullies are afraid. They pick on the weak because they can't take the heat when competing with the big boys. So not only are they horrible, evil creatures, but they deserve to be shot. The funny thing about today's world is we're not living in the middle ages, where the strong had swords and could crush weaklings always. Nowadays any young, tortured, tormented soul can pick up a gun and get sweet sweet justice.
You probably think I'm evil. Of course you do, but that's because you have the hubris to think you stand on the higher moral ground.
There's no such thing as a higher moral ground. You make decisions and stick to them. When the results come back around you don't whine and say "it's not my fault." That's reserved for people who think they are right, who think they are doing good in the world but don't want to see how their actions and beliefs affect others.
I don't know anything about you. I don't presume to know anything about you. But I do know myself, and I know that I whole-heartedly approve of sticking a gun down chacho's throat, spitting in his face, and then laughing as one pulls the trigger. Good riddance. The world's better off.
You might be thinking I'm some evil sumbitch for even considering such a thing. But I don't believe in evil. I believe in choice, and consequences. And that's the difference between you and me, Kamp101.
Will I go to jail if I do something like that? You bet I will. But I won't whine to the judge and beg to be let off the hook. I'll say, "Your honor, I pulled that trigger with full knowledge of my self, my actions, and their consequences. I don't claim I am right or that he deserved it, but I will claim that I made the choice I am satisfied with, and I have no regrets."
And you know what? I would've enjoyed it.
Posts: 4 | Registered: Jun 2009
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quote:Kamp101, hi, how are you doing? I read your post and it got me thinking that you are so completely convinced you have the moral higher ground that it disgusts me.
Wait, I've seen this before.
These two are going to fall in LOOOOVE!
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:But I do know myself, and I know that I whole-heartedly approve of sticking a gun down chacho's throat, spitting in his face, and then laughing as one pulls the trigger.
Yeah, that's probably a pathology. Takes a special kind of person to lie about having one, though.
Grow up a bit, then post again when you're ready to be a human being.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Hopper: did you seriously just must a reference (albeit a spelling-challenged one) to a Sublime song? If you want to pretend that Ender is a Rorschach-esque anti-hero fulfilling your private revenge fantasies, then go ahead. I don't care if fictional characters behave that way -- I've enjoyed my share of Tarantino films. My entire argument is contingent upon the point that Ender's supposed to be some kind of paragon of morality, which Card has frequently acknowledged, both implicitly and explicitly, inside and outside of the books.
I seriously doubt Card would add anything useful to this discussion. Card does not actually argue with people on issues like this based by engaging them in a valid discussion, but by picking some random facts about their background and using them to trivialize that person's point of view (and also denying them any autonomy in their decision making).
This shouldn't surprise anyone, as Card's favorite characters do this all the time. Here's an example of Ender doing it:
quote:“Xenocide is Xenocide,” said Stryka. “Just because Ender didn’t know they [the buggers] were ramen [i.e. human] doesn’t make them any less dead.”
Andrew sighed at Stryka’s unforgiving attitude. It was the fashion among Calvinists at Reykjavik to deny any weight human motive in judging the good or evil of an act . . . Andrew did not resent it—he understood the motive behind it.
Here's an example of Card doing it recently in a really annoying fashion:
quote:I read a review of Up in The Weekly Standard that seemed to miss the point. In fact, the reviewer claimed that the problem with the film was that in certain places it was boring.
Boring? Is he insane?
No, he's just been trained by American animated films to expect one dominant emotion above all others: excitement.
or:
quote:Author Don Calame chose, irritatingly enough, to write the book in present tense. This does nothing but add a needless layer of falseness to the story – when we want to tell something important and true, we always tell it in past tense. That's how English works, and Calame is an unfortunate victim of the pretensions of bad creative writing classes.
His reviews, articles (and increasingly his books) are just peppered with this thing.
What's so annoying about it that it's basically a nested logical fallacy. First of all, it's ad hominem -- addressing only the person and not the argument itself. Second, it's an irrelevant conclusion - someone having taken gone to film school doesn't necessarily make their opinion on a subject wrong. He usually makes these assumptions without any proof, and throws these points out in a way where he is either affirming the consequent or denying the antecedent.
Kudos -- because you have to be a really talented writer to cram as many logical fallacies into a single sentence as he does on a regular basis.
[Personal admission -- the second OSC example really pissed me off lately as Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite writers and frequently uses the present tense, and I can think of countless examples of other writers who write well AND for a popular, generally non-academic audience who use present tense all the time.]
Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Originally posted by kamp101: Hopper: did you seriously just must a reference (albeit a spelling-challenged one) to a Sublime song? If you want to pretend that Ender is a Rorschach-esque anti-hero fulfilling your private revenge fantasies, then go ahead. I don't care if fictional characters behave that way -- I've enjoyed my share of Tarantino films. My entire argument is contingent upon the point that Ender's supposed to be some kind of paragon of morality, which Card has frequently acknowledged, both implicitly and explicitly, inside and outside of the books.
I seriously doubt Card would add anything useful to this discussion. Card does not actually argue with people on issues like this based by engaging them in a valid discussion, but by picking some random facts about their background and using them to trivialize that person's point of view (and also denying them any autonomy in their decision making).
This shouldn't surprise anyone, as Card's favorite characters do this all the time. Here's an example of Ender doing it:
quote:“Xenocide is Xenocide,” said Stryka. “Just because Ender didn’t know they [the buggers] were ramen [i.e. human] doesn’t make them any less dead.”
Andrew sighed at Stryka’s unforgiving attitude. It was the fashion among Calvinists at Reykjavik to deny any weight human motive in judging the good or evil of an act . . . Andrew did not resent it—he understood the motive behind it.
Here's an example of Card doing it recently in a really annoying fashion:
quote:I read a review of Up in The Weekly Standard that seemed to miss the point. In fact, the reviewer claimed that the problem with the film was that in certain places it was boring.
Boring? Is he insane?
No, he's just been trained by American animated films to expect one dominant emotion above all others: excitement.
or:
quote:Author Don Calame chose, irritatingly enough, to write the book in present tense. This does nothing but add a needless layer of falseness to the story – when we want to tell something important and true, we always tell it in past tense. That's how English works, and Calame is an unfortunate victim of the pretensions of bad creative writing classes.
His reviews, articles (and increasingly his books) are just peppered with this thing.
What's so annoying about it that it's basically a nested logical fallacy. First of all, it's ad hominem -- addressing only the person and not the argument itself. Second, it's an irrelevant conclusion - someone having taken gone to film school doesn't necessarily make their opinion on a subject wrong. He usually makes these assumptions without any proof, and throws these points out in a way where he is either affirming the consequent or denying the antecedent.
Kudos -- because you have to be a really talented writer to cram as many logical fallacies into a single sentence as he does on a regular basis.
[Personal admission -- the second OSC example really pissed me off lately as Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite writers and frequently uses the present tense, and I can think of countless examples of other writers who write well AND for a popular, generally non-academic audience who use present tense all the time.]
Ah. That explains a lot. If I understand you correctly, (and I'm not sure I do), what ticks you off about orson scott card's books is his inability to look at a situation from another point of view and to trivialize all others who attempt to do so.
Surprisingly, I agree. Based on the other post, I thought your hang-up was simply that ender was a monster. Maybe he is, but I wouldn't know why you would keep reading if you thought that way. I shrug.
Anyways, I'd like to make some clarifications about my previous post. It is a revenge fantasy for me to blow the brains out of all my middle school bullies, yes, but only a revenge fantasy.
I know the consequences of that action, thus I choose not to act on my impulses. I don't think it's truly a pathology, unless having fantasies qualifies as pathology, which would qualify almost everyone on earth as having a pathology. O.o
I was kind of hurt at somebody's assumption that I needed to grow up a litte. That person, by making that statement, implied that they were all ready grown, also implying in a back-handed sort of way that they didn't need to change their view-point or reconsider their assumption about me. After all, the grown man is always correct compared to the silly child. That really doesn't sit well with me, namely because no one has finished growing.
You grow until you die. And when you stop growing, you figuratively kill yourself. So I hope you guys can understand how that statement, "that I need to grow up" bothered me.
Of course, to me, there is no such thing as "growing up". There is only Growth, which I welcome heartily.
It's true that I need to work out my anger over my school bullying. But the fact that anyone would tell me to simply "grow up" reveals a callousness that not even someone like I possesses.
Anyway, Kamp101, I still don't know very much about you, but I think I understand a little more now. I don't believe you hate ender for his monstrosity(though I could be wrong), but for Orson's inability to view things from multiple sides of view.
If that is the case, then I think I can sympathize.
:edit: No. I did not make any reference to any sublime song. don't know what you thought the reference was, but I assure you, it's purely coincidental.
Posts: 4 | Registered: Jun 2009
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quote:I know the consequences of that action, thus I choose not to act on my impulses.
Good. Let me suggest another reason: shooting helpless people in the face is evil.
quote:That really doesn't sit well with me, namely because no one has finished growing.
I certainly need to grow some more, myself. But I am perfectly capable of looking at my children and saying, "Relative to them, I am more grown."
quote:But the fact that anyone would tell me to simply "grow up" reveals a callousness that not even someone like I possesses.
Yes, I am generally callous and usually pitiless. I do not, however, joke about shooting people in the face.
quote:No. I did not make any reference to any sublime song.
The lines in question, from their song "Santeria," are these: "Daddy's got a new .45 / and I won't think twice to stick that barrel straight down Sancho's throat. / Believe me when I say that I got somethin' for his punk ass."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Tom, I can see where the guy is coming from though. Kamp1 has made some of the more pretentious arguements. I don't like it when people make the "If you think this, then you" arguements.
But calm down, Hopper.
Anywho, was there any good, intentional comic relief in Exile? I'm on the fence about reading it.
posted
Alot of the discussion here is based upon the "legality" of Ender's response to being attacked and how he responded disproportionally.
I think that it is irrelevant. Legally, he would not have been found responsible, but because of his age--not his "self-defense" arguments. But that does not matter--this was a necessary scene in the book, for it showed that he was a general and not a foot soldier.
Ender thought about his actions (more likely he reacted based upon his internal beliefs) and acted accordingly, with a long term perspective. Legally, at least in 2009, self-defense covers the removal of the present threat alone, and in a civil state this is a reasonable law. On a battlefield, it is pure foolishness. Part of the reason for selecting such young children for Battle School may have been to start with a clean slate, before the impression of social norms and values had occurred.
But Ender was not selected and then trained for either A) his awareness of the intricacies of self-defense legal issues, or B) his restraint in dispute resolution. He was chosen for this ability to think ten moves ahead of his opponent. Had he stayed on Earth, he would have over time learned to reconcile his long term thinking with society's expectations, and he probably would have then made a poorer general.
I liken it to the dropping of the atom bombs during World War II. Totally disproportionate, and despite what anyone will tell you in school, it was meant to target the civilian population and break their spirit. There were legitimate military targets, but nothing that required an atomic bomb. It was a "Total War" scenario, which has occurred all throughout history, where the civilian population, sadly, becomes a legitimate target. Only by such overwhelming force can peace eventually be achieved and more civilian lives be saved in the long run.
Anyways, I am not an author, critic, lawyer or a soldier, so these are just my two cents on the matter.
Posts: 1 | Registered: Jun 2009
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posted
Hi Kyle. I'm not arguing that Ender's actions couldn't possibly be justified from the viewpoint of an uber-self-protective military pragmatist who will stop at nothing to eliminate threats to his person, species, etc. I'm arguing that they're not justifiable morally. The legal bit is a "least he could do" proxy in this case, as he doesn't even achieve bare minimum ethical conduct in some cases... unless anyone wants to argue that his killing Stilson was somehow a profound act of civil disobedience.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that a supposedly super innately moral kid wouldn't kill another kid without any more threat to his person than what millions of kids in the history of time have dealt with without resorting to extreme violence against a helpless victim.
quote:I don't like it when people make the "If you think this, then you" arguements.
Sorry for throwing them in there, but I think in both cases (that I remember) it came from complete exasperation and just involved restatement -- little to no hyperbole required.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:he doesn't even achieve bare minimum ethical conduct in some cases... unless anyone wants to argue that his killing Stilson was somehow a profound act of civil disobedience.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that a supposedly super innately moral kid wouldn't kill another kid without any more threat to his person than what millions of kids in the history of time have dealt with without resorting to extreme violence against a helpless victim.
In what way was Ender written as being "super innately moral?" Empathetic does not mean sympathetic.
By virtue of being alive, Ender was repressed. As a third, he earned automatic pariah status. Furthermore, the culture around him had been frustrated from acting on their enculturated disdain by the monitor. Remember the scene before Stilson attacked him? All the pent up anger and frustration-- Ender knew when they took the monitor out, even before he had it verified when he came back to class, that he was going to be walking into trouble.
Furthermore, he discovered that no adults were going to come save him.
While what he did to Stilson (and please remember that Ender wasn't aware that he'd killed Stilson, either during the attack or afterward) was certainly not moral, Ender wasn't in a civilized, moral environment. He was in an artificial environment, constructed precisely to test his self-protective/pragmatic nature.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
I don't know how you could miss the fact that OSC spends all of the books rubbing the reader's nose in Ender's moral superiority? Graff, Valentine, etc. always insist that Ender is extremely good (and the reader is meant to believe it). The character develops into the founder of the ultimate really good religion and goes around the galaxy making flawless moral pronouncements. The big thing with EIE is that it makes the continuity so that he looks back and doesn't take on any blame for what he did -- which is in direct contrast to Chapter 15 in the original Ender's Game, where he looks back on what he's done with shame and considers his acts crimes.
The only thing abnormal about the environment Ender was in when confronted with Stilson was that he didn't have a monitor... which means it was just like any present day bullying situation. No exceptional circumstances. His third status isn't worse than any other pariah status anyone else has had, and I'm pretty certain when he reflects back on the Stilson fight when fighting Bonzo he knows that his life wasn't in danger during any earlier physical encounter (like it is with Bonzo).
Whether or not Ender was aware he killed Stilson is irrelevant in determining whether or not what he did was moral -- he kicked the hell out of a guy who was disabled and on the ground to achieve some end that wasn't immediate, but for "tomorrow" and "the next day." He knew, and we find out immediately, that he'd done enough damage to put Stilson in the hospital.
Are these actions excusable as the overzealous mistakes of desperate, manipulated boy? Maybe? Is it the end that Stilson earned (and he alone had merited) at the age of 6-8 and is Ender moral for pronouncing it at the beginning of EIE to be so? No freaking way.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:I don't know how you could miss the fact that OSC spends all of the books rubbing the reader's nose in Ender's moral superiority? Graff, Valentine, etc. always insist that Ender is extremely good (and the reader is meant to believe it).
Well-- they DO have to trick him in order to get him to kill the Buggers. But it's also clear that despite his moral compass, Ender continually makes the choices that reflect PETER's style of warfare rather than Valentine's.
I mean-- the end of the Fantasy Game.
quote: The only thing abnormal about the environment Ender was in when confronted with Stilson was that he didn't have a monitor... which means it was just like any present day bullying situation. No exceptional circumstances. His third status isn't worse than any other pariah status anyone else has had, and I'm pretty certain when he reflects back on the Stilson fight when fighting Bonzo he knows that his life wasn't in danger during any earlier physical encounter (like it is with Bonzo).
I've provided examples and explanation for my interpretation. You've basically said "Nuh-uh."
I think I'd better be able to appreciate your interpretation if you backed it up with something in context.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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