posted
I don't really see why everyone assumes Peter was an evil child. The only evidence I see of that is his messing with Ender the day before Ender leaves and then his killing of the squirrel. Besides these things I cannot see him as evil, he may be an opputunist but his intentions really are for the greater good. What do you guys think?
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I think Peter is a more interesting character if you assume the opposite: that his intentions were opportunistic, but that he concluded the best way to gain and hold personal power was to be relatively benign about it -- and that, in the process of acting benign every single moment of every day, he managed to change himself into something more benign over the course of his life.
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He flayed a sqiurrel alive.............. cant get over that. Didnt just kill it, tortured it, and all the death threats towards Valentine, two oh so innocent creatures.
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Peter doesn't have a a very significant empathy response. In this way he is similar to sociopaths. The squirrel is an example of something he really shouldn't have done, and is meant to demonstrate that, at best, he's rather indifferent to pain in others.
But what I think Card meant to demonstrate, and the interpretation that Tom mentioned sort of fits with this, is that what you do matters more than why you are doing it.
If Peter didn't care about making the world better, and simply wanted glory and power, but chose to do act in a moral fashion because it helped him achieve his goal, well, at the end he acted in a moral fashion and in the most important sense is a "good" person, who did some bad things early in life.
I do think Peter was changed somewhat in the process, but my take on it is that Peter came to believe that he was a good person because he chose to do good, but didn't necessarily become motivated by a desire to do good. I think he came to forgive himself for not choosing morality for its own sake.
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Maybe. There isnt all that much if him in Ender's Game so he always felt like he was in Limbo--similarly to Calvin in Alvin Maker.
By the end of Homecoming, I hated Elemak a lot more than I ever hated Peter. I wanted to punch him in the face.
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quote:He flayed a sqiurrel alive.............. cant get over that. Didnt just kill it, tortured it
Kids can be cruel. Kids can be cruel and grow up to not be monsters. If you knew, you'd probably be shocked at how many people you know committed cruelties when they were younger.
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quote:He flayed a sqiurrel alive.............. cant get over that. Didnt just kill it, tortured it
Kids can be cruel. Kids can be cruel and grow up to not be monsters. If you knew, you'd probably be shocked at how many people you know committed cruelties when they were younger.
Exactly what I thought. I'm not so sure for girls but I can say that most guys do something cruel in there childhood, though I don't know of anything as severe as killing a squirrel.
And thanks for others' responses, I enjoy reading them and seeing how other people view charecters.
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I really liked the bit in "Children of the Mind" when the new Peter talks about how his memories are all wrong, even though he knows what they should be. He remembers torturing the squirrel and enjoying its suffering, but knows that the real memory should be one of vivisecting it and studying its suffering. He might, of course, be lying, but I think it fits in nicely with the view of Peter that is gradually developed throughout the series: He's never truly been evil, but his egocentric emotions and ambitions (pride, arrogance, lust for power) and his weakly developed moral centre caused him to act as if he were, on occasion.
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quote:Originally posted by dab: peter should have at least made it up to battle school.
The only reason he didn't go to battle school was because they decided to let the Wiggins try for a third. If Ender was born an idiot Peter would have been in battle school no problem. They just knew that Ender couldn't function with his bro up in space too.
*my theory anyway.
Posts: 856 | Registered: Jun 2007
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He bullied his brother and sister. That is kind of intolerable, as well as torturing an innocent squirrel. But I don't get why his parents never DID anything about his bullying. We're supposed to believe his parents knew what was going on with Peter and Valentine, but they didn't seem to know about the bullying or say anything about it, so that's one of those changes I find unbelievable.
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I'm pretty sure they did do something about Peter's bullying, they moved from the city to the country to try to mellow him. So you can forgive Ender for killing two kids and Bean for killing Achilles in cold blood but you can't forgive Peter for being a bully as a kid?
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You misunderstand I can't really forgive any of those things, but in the case of Stilson, that was harsh, kicking a kid in the balls when he was down already, harsh. In the case of that other fellow, Bonzo, he was kind of a prat for going after a small child, but it still sucked that he got killed. But, I really hate bullying. I can't stand it. In Ender's case, he got bullied and struck back, but, man did he use too much force though... But this might start another argument about why I am a bleeding heart liberal who doesn't belive in people having the right to defend themselves which isn't the case.
But I don't see how just moving to the city does much good. There wasn't a scene when they said, you are not to bully your brother and sister, instead you got to do something more constructive like take over the world now that they are gone. But then again, it was mostly in Ender's perspective, so you don't get that. I really don't think they were very good parents for the most part when it came to that issue.
But sheesh, do people put words in your fingers.
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I may be misremembering, but I think there's one scene in which they mention that they knew and how hard it was not to try and do anything about it. Not sure if they gave any reason, but I can think of several possibilities...
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quote:Originally posted by dab: peter should have at least made it up to battle school.
I think "soul of a jackal" were the words used, and its easy to believe that if Peter were raised in an enviroment where he would have to respect and follow the orders of others. Peter would not make for an effective soldier, Ender was willing to be dominated, Valentine seemed to expect it, but Peter always refused power greater than his own and did not seek to learn from it, but destroy it.
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quote:Peter would not make for an effective soldier
Probably not, but they probably would have tried him out anyway - the Battle School system seems to be sufficiently robust to take anyone who's bright enough and not be damaged, no matter how contrary they behave. After all, they took children like Dink and Zeck (the "War of Gifts" protagonist) whose psych-tests likely were no more promising than Peter's.
Posts: 96 | Registered: Jun 2009
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quote:Originally posted by dab: peter should have at least made it up to battle school.
I think "soul of a jackal" were the words used, and its easy to believe that if Peter were raised in an enviroment where he would have to respect and follow the orders of others. Peter would not make for an effective soldier, Ender was willing to be dominated, Valentine seemed to expect it, but Peter always refused power greater than his own and did not seek to learn from it, but destroy it.
I can't source it in the books, but wikipedia says the ultimate explanation for Peter not going to Battle School is that the administrators concluded that other soldiers would not want to follow him (could not 'love' him). (I think this fits reasonably well with events in the Shadow series; Peter never inspires loyalty to himself, and has to get himself in control of a cause that is compelling.) However, I do think this explanation for Peter's rejection from B.S. is a retcon, and not a completely effective one - Battle School is full of other unlovable characters and bad leaders; it's a bit implausible that they had significant personality screening.
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quote:the ultimate explanation for Peter not going to Battle School is that the administrators concluded that other soldiers would not want to follow him
I think you're missing a subtle difference here: His lack of charisma meant that he could never have been "The One", the battle commander that Ender ended up being. However, Battle School had a broader purpose than producing that single person, which is why it's full of students who don't have what it takes in one way or the other. So, the decision not to accept Peter (and maybe even not to accept Valentine) may well have had more to do with creating the ideal (according to Graff's ideas) environment for Ender, and less with any particular "flaw" in their character makeup.
So, the fact that there are plenty of students who seem less suitable than Peter isn't necessarily a contradiction. Still, as you say, a lot of the ultimate motives for decisions mentioned in "Ender's Game" are changed in the Shadows series, and the line between gaining new insights that lead to genuine different interpretations and retconning for the sake of story development is rather blurry.
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posted
I think since Peter wasn't suitable for the "One" battle commander they realized he would have made an even worse subordinate. I can't imagine Peter following orders and he would chaff at not being "The One".
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quote:he would have made an even worse subordinate
That point is specifically addressed in the dialogue between Peter and Graff that I'm basing most of what I'm saying here on. IIRC they agree that Peter would have made a terrible subordinate to Ender. However, several of the jeesh (Dink, Tom) would likely have made terrible subordinates to most commanders - by analogy, it is conceivable that Peter may have made a good subordinate to the right commander. Improbable but not impossible.
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posted
Well these responses bring up the question. Do the children have their battle tactics/initiative/knowledge before they go up into school, or do they learn those things there? Because unless I am mistaken Ender and Peter never learned anything about waging war in school, so wouldn't they have been (apart from Peter's ambition and malice) essentially the same B.S. student?
Posts: 18 | Registered: Jun 2009
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You're not mistaken, the general school curriculum seems to include just as little study of tactics and strategy as ours did - Peter talks about being completely unprepared to fight a war when he becomes Hegemon. So, yes, Ender and Peter would have arrived at Battle School with about the same theoretical preparation.
They are both brilliant - I'm under the impression that Ender has a slight edge on his siblings, but can't recall that that's actually stated in the books - so their test scores would have been similarly high, assuming that they would have been equally motivated. But there are far more important factors than raw intelligence (that's pretty much the central theme of "Ender's Shadow", after all), and the three Wigginses have quite distinct (though related) strengths and intrinsic skillsets.
Ender has at least three advantages, methinks:
He has a knack for war. He's pretty much as good a strategist as Bean, even though he's nowhere near as smart overall. There's no reason to think that Peter was as gifted in this specific area - his knack was for politics.
He inspires true personal loyalty. Peter does not.
He's the grey to Peter's black and Valentine's white. As Valentine puts it, Peter sees the worst in people and can use it to harass and intimidate. She sees the best and can use it to flatter and persuade. Ender sees some of either side, which is what makes him alone able to understand the Formics sufficiently to predict their crucial weaknesses (aka the "to destroy your enemies, you have to love them the way they love themselves" theme).
So, they would have been "the same student" only in a narrow sense, and the same commander not at all. Or am I missing your point?
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posted
You hit my point dead on. I was just arguing that Peter would have definately been an effective soldier and you convinced me that Andrew and Peter would be different soldiers.
You just gave me a question for a new thread.
Posts: 18 | Registered: Jun 2009
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posted
Seeing kassyopeia's post has had me sitting here thinking for a while.
In the book, down by the lake, Valentine was musing about how Peter and Ender were two sides of a coin, and her the metal in between.
In terms of manipulation, as you say, Ender is the grey area.
I think that in terms of action, Peter is the grey area between Ender and Valentine. Val grew up to be an historian - she catalogues history, but doesn't intervene. Ender acts, and creates new histories without regard to old ones - look at how he continuously broke battle school traditions, of the game room, and the training. He doesn't have enough of a sense of belonging to one culture to identify with and continue using their historical, cultural identity.
Peter's ability in this area is what allowed him to rule Earth - playing teams off against each other by understanding where they'd come from in the way Val did, and then using it, which is the step she never took. (The on scene demonstration of this skill actually goes to Virlomi, rousing India in the Shadow books. Peter used a deeper and more subtle/strategic version of the same skill to achieve his victories).
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posted
I'm curious, what did people see Peter doing in the Shadow series where he was engaged in effective manipulation?
I don't recall him doing much of anything. The one plan I can remember him being credited with (somehow using Achilles to get people to follow him), he never actually does anything about and through amazing stupidity, ends up with him having to flee in the night.
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quote:I'm curious, what did people see Peter doing in the Shadow series where he was engaged in effective manipulation?
I suppose it depends on the type of manipulation one looks for.
On a large scale, the entire trilogy is meant to show Peter manipulating world history to bring about the creation of the FPE. He's far more subtle than, say, Achilles or Alai. Instead of launching wars or setting up elaborate conspiracies, he mostly sits back and nudges events just enough so that at the critical moment, the conditions created by secondary effects of the other world leaders' plans are just what he needs to gain irresistible support for his cause. One could, of course, argue that the author simply set things up so that Peter would end up where he wanted him to end up without the character having to do much of anything... but if one doesn't, Occam's Razor strongly suggests that Peter's success has more to do with skill than luck, even if the reader often just sees the effects and not the actions that caused them.
On a smaller scale, I agree with you. The only successful manipulative scheme at that level that I can think of, off the top of my head, is his exposure of Uphanad as the mole in "Puppets".
In the sense that Valentine talks about in "Ender's Game", forcing people to do what he wants by manipulating and bullying them, I can't think of any cases at all. But that makes sense, as it applies to the pre-"Ender's Stocking"-Peter, no?
Posts: 96 | Registered: Jun 2009
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posted
I think Peter had a hard time with emotions -- feeling them properly, reacting to them normally, and expressing them outwardly. As a child, I think, he used anger and cruelty as a cover for his inability to empathize. Instead of it being intuitive, it was something he had to learn.
He saw good, he saw evil, he just didn't understand why one was better than the other except that one was more valued by people. He was smart enough to realize that evil wasn't going to cut it if he wanted to be anything in the world. He could have been a big crime boss, but he had higher aspirations.
YMMV because, of course, this is my personal response to the character. I like my theory because my brother is a non-verbal autistic and I, myself, had a hard time processing the emotional states of others as a child. I have "learned" to evaluate social situations and try to work off my previous experiences for the appropriate responses. I know that someone is being teasing, and I acknowledge it, but I still try to answer their sarcastic/rhetorical questions or comments. So that's why I see the character that way. A little bit of "myself" in there. Posts: 2 | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
I think Peter was just a kid who grew up hating the world because he felt like it hated him. I mean, from his perspective, his parents always fussed over Ender and Val, and kind of left him alone because he was the oldest. I don't think they (or Valentine) tried to understand how humiliating it was for Peter to lose to his baby brother. As a kid, he just reacted to that, and because nobody consoled him or tried to fix his problem, he just stayed that way until he grew up. (It's kind of sad, to have to be that bitter during your childhood.) And I don't think that his parents making comments about how unloveable he is (though not directly) helped at all. So basically, I think Peter was misunderstood and it caused him to grow up all twisted inside.
Personally, I think Peter is awesome and he is without a doubt the most entertaining character in the Ender books. I love hearing his cynnical thoughts, especially toward his parents. *mini-spoiler... And he found happiness in the end(or the closest thing he could get to it): he achieved greatness; his parents gave him a genuine compliment without mentioning Ender; he married the woman he loved, etc, so I'm happy for him.... spoiler over.*
And two points I've always wanted to raise: 1. Valentine's depicted as being like the nicest person in the world, but is she really? The only exceptionally sweet thing I think she's done is protect Ender from Peter. There are some moments where she's filled with compassion, and she holds back her feelings so as to not upset the other person, but I just don't think she's as perfectly sweet as everybody says. Like, her attitude towards Peter is to be expected, but if she really did have the heart of a saint she'd give him more chances, right? (But I guess she was smart enough to realize his conceitedness would never change.) 2. Peter may have seemed awful, but at least he wasn't vain and caught up with his own greatness. I was surprised by how SERIOUS he was in the Shadow books. He's a pretty meticulous person, although he misses some big clues and screws up at times. That's something I respect. And I think he stayed true to a lot of his words.
I know that was a long long post... sorry everyone!
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posted
Yeah, I always hated Elemak more because he actually had things to be happy about, had friends, and had actually proven himself to be a good leader, and he was still a piece of shit person.
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"Yeah, I always hated Elemak more because he actually had things to be happy about, had friends, and had actually proven himself to be a good leader, and he was still a piece of shit person."
I had to think for all of 2 seconds before I came up with a big brother that I personally know (not my own) who is every bit as bad as Elemak. I'm not saying all (or even most) big brothers are like that. I'm just saying...it's not that rare. I'm sure most of us here know at least one situation where a younger brother was tortured by and felt truly hated by an older brother. One of my best friends from childhood was still bitter about how his oldest brother treated him, even when we were almost 30. It really scarred him. He's only made his peace with it in the last 3-4 years, and he's almost 35.
I assume I'm saying the obvious.
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Elemak did a few things that seem worse than the usual asshole.
He tried to have his father assassinated, and he went to an extreme level of torture in Earthfall.
Keep in mind that Elemak was under an unusual type of constraint for a character. It's not like he could have been any nicer. Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Quara is more of a jerk than Peter in my opinion.
Seems like Peter knew he couldn't control Valentine or Andrew with charms or his wit so he went the fear route. By the shadow series his loss of Ender then Valentine mellowed him out a lot I think especially Val of course.
Yeah Elemak was a jerk but he had a lot riding on his shoulders and he thought his dad had gone crazy.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Oct 2009
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posted
I think Peter was seen as a bad character in Ender's Game because he was depicted through Ender's eyes. But I don't find him necessarily evil. When we were little, my sister would say she is a vampire that is sucking my blood at night, and that's why I have moles on my neck. Now I find it funny that she managed to scare the hell out of me. I think Ender made himself an easy target, for his brother's pranks, and because he left his family at such a young age he just remained with this image in his head. He does come to Ender at night and tells him he's sorry, and that he loves him (what about that?). In the Shadow series he seems pretty normal to me - a little bitchy maybe, but not evil anyway. I do find him the most interesting character in both series. And the most interesting and funny part is that after he gets everything he ever wanted, plus a happy and loving family, he gets a second chance at life. And Ender gets what? After a life with no happiness, a second chance through his nemesis? That was SO unfair, it made me laugh! OSC has such a twisted sense of humor, he never fails me! Posts: 1 | Registered: Oct 2009
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Yeah, through reading the Shadow series again. I've decided that Peter is awesome,a good guy, and someone I'd want to be in the world.
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posted
Peter in EG is more than a bit of a monster. But you'd need to be to pull off what he is supposed to have pulled off.
Peter in the Shadow series is ineffectual, not that bright, passive, and while sort of a jerk, isn't really that bad a guy. He would also have no chance at uniting the world under his rule. Heck, OSC doesn't even try to show him doing so. Of the many failures of the Shadow series, this was probably the most disappointing one for me.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Yeah, he sure took a helluva lotta shine* off Peter between EG and the Shadow games. And transferred it mostly to Bean and Petra and his parents, really. It was just strange. The three siblings were supposed to have an equal** level of capabilities, but in fact it turned out quite different.
*Shine as far as effectiveness. Peter in EG was almost supernatural.
**Equal in the sense that if you gave all three of them a list of attributes quantified by points, all three of them would add up to about the same number, but in radically different areas.
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quote:The only successful manipulative scheme at that level that I can think of, off the top of my head, is his exposure of Uphanad as the mole in "Puppets".
It's been awhile, but is that where he figures out his chief of security is in Achilles pocket? Because, to me, that showed Peter being exceptionally stupid.
IIRC, the whole thing came about because Peter's dad put a key logger on Achilles that was interfering with the logger that the security chief put on, that made it look as if Achilles wasn't using the computer system. So, Peter was stupid first because he wasn't checking on this at all and second, as soon as his father brought him this information, he should have had his security arrested, interrogated, and most likely killed.
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posted
For all of those weirdos who think Peter is evil, I have just one question for you. Have you read Shadow of the Giant? Because the last chapter tells us exactly why Peter was so horrible as a kid.
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posted
Peter is absolutely evil. The Shadow series, and even the end of the Children of the Mind series, forgot that.
Valentine existed, and Ender existed, because Peter was too dangerous to be taken up into Battle School. The - extensive - personality testing that they did on Battle School candidates, testing that still allowed children like Bonzo to become part of the program, flagged Peter as too dangerous and aggressive.
Too dangerous and aggressive. For Battle School.
Yes, the quote used in the books is 'soul of a jackal'. Later books either tried to mitigate Peter (making him ineffective) or OSC just forgot how evil Peter was, but the bold print of it is that if Peter had been at all suitable for Battle School, Valentine and Ender would not have existed because there wouldn't have been a need.
His evil went far beyond the squirrel. Either Ender or Valentine remembered things Peter would do to other children - the example given was when Peter would find out one child's deepest shameful secret, and then tell it to the person that child respected the most. Manipulative and cruel without having a point, without having a reason - because what could Peter gain from engaging in that sort of petty manipulation? That, being manipulative and cruel to *be* manipulative and cruel... I find that pretty evil.
Ender may have been a terrorized child, but throughout the series, he's sort of had a... superpower, almost, of understanding people. If child Ender thinks Peter is evil, I'm not going to argue.
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I think you can overlook the end of CotM pretty easily, since the "Peter" at the end of that book is basically a more self-assured version of Ender.
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Y'know, Graff tells Ender that Peter isnt all bad, too. And again, not really tking a side, just playing the devil's advocate here, but you could make the case that humiliating others was an outlet for Peter's frustration, so there was a sort of reason. I mean, thats still really ****ed up, but I approach it with an it is what it is attitude.
quote:Originally posted by MouetteSheridan: Peter is absolutely evil. The Shadow series, and even the end of the Children of the Mind series, forgot that.
Valentine existed, and Ender existed, because Peter was too dangerous to be taken up into Battle School. The - extensive - personality testing that they did on Battle School candidates, testing that still allowed children like Bonzo to become part of the program, flagged Peter as too dangerous and aggressive.
Too dangerous and aggressive. For Battle School.
Yes, the quote used in the books is 'soul of a jackal'. Later books either tried to mitigate Peter (making him ineffective) or OSC just forgot how evil Peter was, but the bold print of it is that if Peter had been at all suitable for Battle School, Valentine and Ender would not have existed because there wouldn't have been a need.
His evil went far beyond the squirrel. Either Ender or Valentine remembered things Peter would do to other children - the example given was when Peter would find out one child's deepest shameful secret, and then tell it to the person that child respected the most. Manipulative and cruel without having a point, without having a reason - because what could Peter gain from engaging in that sort of petty manipulation? That, being manipulative and cruel to *be* manipulative and cruel... I find that pretty evil.
Ender may have been a terrorized child, but throughout the series, he's sort of had a... superpower, almost, of understanding people. If child Ender thinks Peter is evil, I'm not going to argue.
What could Peter gain? Try Trial and Error. He poked and prodded at his fellow classmates to see what their reactions would be...he was learning. Plus I find an astounding number of people on these forums take Ender for granted. They broke him...many times.All the pent up trauma and scarring that comes with that type of childhood...can you imagine? No wonder he fell in love with Novinha...he finally found himself a girl who was as screwed up (if not less) then himself. He doesn't have a superpower and while I agree that child-Ender had pretty good judgment. I think baby-through-6 yr old-Ender's perspective of Peter was a little skewed.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
While Peter as Card wrote him made for some great imagery during the story to me felt of quite a bit of badass decay who in Ender's Game in my edition of it was implied to be the world's top badass who ruled the world with an iron fist in a benevolent dictatorship that through force of will survived to become Starwars Congress in a sort of Glasnos after he died.
Instead in the shadow novels we get someone while impressive is nowhere near the level of awe inspired by card originally and I am dissapointed.
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Cant remember where it is in the shadow series, but peter is speaking with graff, and graff explains to peter that "no one is too aggressive for battle school" and that peter wasn't accepted because they needed him on earth for after the final battle.
Anyone know exactly where this convo is in the books?
Aside from that, kids do a lot of messed up stuff. Finding out deep dark secrets and telling them to others? You think thats weird? Didn't you ever attend gradeschool?
I dissected live animals in biology lab in highschool, does that make me EVIL? Evil is a small word with enormous implications. I don't think Peter is EVIL at all actually...
Remember the scene in EG when peter thought ender was alseep and apologized for terrorizing Ender? Its been a while since I read the book but i recall that being a very tender peter.
As someone who has an older brother who used to beat up on me as a kid, I remember with great clarity thinking my brother was extraordinarily cruel when i was a child, but as I developed and matured I came to realize my skew as a child. Evil characters don't have genuine moments of tender apology. Ever remember Achilles having a truly honest tender moment in the entire series?
lastly, when newpeter is conflicted about his memories of the killing of the squirrel, itsbecause he is a reincarnation of peter as ender remembered him as a 6 year old boy... Peter was "studying it" but remembered enjoying the torture because he was created in the image of ender's traumatized memories of peter.
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He is extremely whiny in beginning of the shadow series... annoyingly so. It really bothered me about his character. Anyone else get that vibe from Peter in the beginning?
But as he matured I came to like his character more and more.
Posts: 16 | Registered: Jan 2010
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posted
Rome, where and when did you go to high school? I'll write a letter and ask them to reconsider the vivisection unit of the biology curriculum.
Unless you meant that you dissected dead animals in biology class. Which is a bit more common, I think.
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