quote:One way it could make sense is that Mazer has privately concluded that the buggers are no longer a threat and doesn't want total xenocide on his conscience.
I'm not buying that. Mazer isn't alone with Ender when the conversation in question takes place. We can take it for granted that most of the witnesses don't actually object to the destruction of the planet (because of their subsequent behaviour that you mention, "overjoyed reaction to the victory and total lack of recrimination"). So, if the witnesses had taken Mazer's comment at face value and interpreted it as the expression of a private, dissenting view, they would have stepped in. Also, Mazer had no way of knowing that the queens had assembled on the homeworld, which was what made the planet's destruction (nearly) tantamount to xenocide.
quote:Another explanation is that planet destruction is against rules of war and instructing Ender to destroy the planet would make a war criminal of Mazer (and possibly others) and so, to avoid personal consequences, Mazer chooses to risk losing the war.
Again, not buying it. Virtually everyone believed the Formics to be a genuine threat to the survival of humanity. That's not the climate in which one accords an alien enemy the protection of the law. And even if there had been personal consequences, I don't see Mazer as the kind of person who would let that influence his decision. After all, he had already given up his family in order to be available to train Ender.
quote:Perhaps a more coherent explanation, though also one that lacks direct support (again, to my recollection), is that they were nervous about what would happen when the MD device was used on a planet.
Interesting, I never thought of that. But, in that case, they surely wouldn't have left the decision whether or not to use it up to a teenager who thought he was playing a computer game?
quote:I think it was important to Card to have Ender at the end of his rope at this point, and going against orders is the illustration.
I agree, he makes that quite explicit - we're told that part of Ender's reason for the decision is the hope that this overt "cheat" will result in failing the "test" and being sent home. But we need to keep in mind that Mazer et al know how he acted when put in a similar situation in Battle School. It seems reasonable to assume that they would expect him to act similarly now.
quote:There's a hint of melodrama about the "he gave everything he had, and it was only just enough."
More than a hint. And it seems very contrived - there would have been plenty of ways to avoid taxing Ender to that extent. So, the question becomes, is it a contrivance of the author's, or a contrivance of Mazer's, with the aim of maneuvering Ender into exactly the state he was in at the end? ---
quote:If Ender fails in his attempt then the buggers will have no choice but to retaliate with a strike to destroy Earth.
I doubt that that's it. The way I read it, the general interpretation of the Formics' course of action during the first two invasion is that destroying humanity was their plan all along, so in that respect there's no way to make things worse than they already are.
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quote: If Ender fails in his attempt then the buggers will have no choice but to retaliate with a strike to destroy Earth. I doubt that that's it. The way I read it, the general interpretation of the Formics' course of action during the first two invasion is that destroying humanity was their plan all along, so in that respect there's no way to make things worse than they already are.
I've just finished reading that part of the book, afterwards Graf asks Mazer how come he couldn't have delayed a few minor battles until after the attack on the Home World. If you intend to commit Xenocide there wouldn't be a question like this.
Also why go through the whole invasion, if the plan is Xenocide delay the rest of the invasion except for the attack on the Home world and blow it up. The whole invasion scenario would be completely unnecessary.
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posted
I don't think that Mazer or Graff really wanted the xenocide, but they knew that it was necessary. There was no way of knowing that the Buggers weren't planning another invasion, and even if they hadn't been, it would be beyond foolish to simply assume that they wouldn't have retaliated if the human fleet had left them with any capability to do so. You can't roll the dice and hope for the best with noble intentions when the fate of all humanity is at stake.
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quote:Also why go through the whole invasion, if the plan is Xenocide delay the rest of the invasion except for the attack on the Home world and blow it up. The whole invasion scenario would be completely unnecessary.
Okay, there are two aspects here. The first is whether the IF's original plan was to wipe out the entire Formic species. The second is why they didn't go about it more efficiently.
As to the first, I think the answer is yes, unless something unexpected happened. The IF's aim was to make sure that the Formics would never again attack humans. As far as they knew, the only way to do that was to kill them, as the Formics seemed implacably hostile and uncommunicative. They may have been content with reducing the population to a size and level of technology that could be easily kept in check, if that had been an option - but that seems too hypothetical a scenario to be worth speculating about. If the expected protracted campaign had materialized, things would probably have turned out quite well in the end, as the Formics didn't want to fight and were making significant steps towards communication. But I think this falls under the "something unexpected" case.
As to the second, the answer is rather obvious. The IF simply didn't know enough to come up with a better plan. Even the existence of queens was merely assumed, certainly nobody could have predicted that they would obligingly gather on a single planet. ---
quote:You can't roll the dice and hope for the best with noble intentions when the fate of all humanity is at stake.
I dunno. Ethically, this seems a grey area to me - basically, does one's own right to life extend to pre-emptively depriving an enemy of their right to life? But, as the author makes clear, this isn't really about ethics but about (survival) instinct.
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quote:You can't roll the dice and hope for the best with noble intentions when the fate of all humanity is at stake.
I dunno. Ethically, this seems a grey area to me - basically, does one's own right to life extend to pre-emptively depriving an enemy of their right to life? But, as the author makes clear, this isn't really about ethics but about (survival) instinct. [/QB]
Exactly. Survival instincts trump ethics in this case. I think it was Graff who made the point that humanity as a species can't just choose to let itself die out. All the I.F. knew was that the Buggers attacked us (unprovoked) twice. It's not human nature or even common sense to say, "gee, let's just keep our fingers crossed and hope that they don't come back because it would be wrong for us to kill them when they made first contact by trying to kill us... TWICE."
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quote: I think it was Graff who made the point that humanity as a species can't just choose to let itself die out.
I think Graff is wrong within the Enderverse, actually, unless he's using "can't" in some moral sense. If the survival of the species really depends on killing the Formics, and killing the Formics depends on Ender's skill - or Ender plus Bean plus Petra, if you prefer - then the choice that 'humanity' is making actually comes down to the choices of between one and three teenagers. It does not seem impossible that all three might say "to hell with it". What's Graff going to do about it, shoot them?
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posted
I think he's saying that people in general aren't going to turn off their survival instinct or try to override it somehow. Not that the choices of certain people can't result in humanity dying out.
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quote:I think he's saying that people in general aren't going to turn off their survival instinct or try to override it somehow.
Agreed. And his point of view is an obvious consequence of evolving a species by natural selection. What it isn't taking into account is the that self-awareness and morality might overcome instinct, at the level of a species just as much as at that of an individual (I'm not saying that that's so, just that that point needs to be repudiated for the claim to hold).
The fact that one of the qualities that makes Ender so particularly suited for ensuring species survival, his universal capacity for empathy, is also one that might cause him to decide not to act in the species' best interest, is one of the aspects about him that I like best. Posts: 96 | Registered: Jun 2009
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posted
I don't think Mazer or anyone expected Ender to commit Genocide. I think they wanted him to win a complete and decisive victory, but I don't think they had any vision of what that victory entailed.
When they saw the computer screen in the last battle, they didn't see victory, they saw utter hopeless defeat, but they still expected Ender and his crew to fight to the bitter end.
They still wanted victory, they still hope Ender would pull off a miracle, but they had no idea what that miracle was.
I think they were stunned when Ender attacked the planet, a strategy that never occurred to them. Partly because it was a suicide strategy. If you attack a planet, there is no way you or your ships can out run the resulting blast.
It was the 'mother's ship, not the fighters that held back out of the potential blast zone. But all the fighting ships in the area were, for the most part, lost.
When Ender asked about using the Doctor Device against a planet, and Mazer told him that would be unwise, I think it was earlier in the series of battles.
And at that time, it was the correct advice. When you had many more battles ahead of you, you would not want to strike such a heartless and devastating blow. It would first embolden the enemy. It would also teach them the lengths that you were willing to go, and they would plan future battles away from the planet to prevent you from continuing that strategy. So, at the time he said it, Mazer was right, and he meant what he said.
But in the final battle, the odds were so overwhelmingly against them, that there were only two ultimate choices, fight to the death, or retreat. I suspect the on-lookers expected Ender to fight a hopeless battle to the death, and they would have no choice but to accept defeat.
But by doing the one illogical suicidal thing, Ender managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Now, there is another aspect, that I think works best for self-deluded bureaucrats. They knew what victory meant, the annihilation of the Buggers, but they didn't want to really face the reality of that.
To them, they simply saw it as victory, without even considering what victory meant. I don't think any of them would have said publicly or privately that they wanted to commit genocide against the Buggers, but, really, what else could victory have meant under the circumstances?
So, I don't think any of them in their conscious minds or in there public statements wanted or advocated genocide, but I think deep down, they knew what the only possible thing that victory could have meant was exactly that.
So, there was certainly an element of self-delusion all the way around.
posted
kassyopeia, Mazer does instruct Ender that using the MD Device on a Planet was breaking the rules. They didn't leave the decision up to a teenager, they outlawed it. Ender was done. He wanted out. He figured using the MD Device on a planet would get him kicked out. I think it worked a little TOO well, eh?
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quote:When Ender asked about using the Doctor Device against a planet, and Mazer told him that would be unwise, I think it was earlier in the series of battles.
No, it's directly before the final battle. In the short story, Mazer makes the comment twice, once when the weapon is introduced and once before the final battle, but the first instance isn't present in the novel.
quote:I think they were stunned when Ender attacked the planet, a strategy that never occurred to them.
But it's so obvious, how could it not occur to them? On the whole, the IF is described as a very efficient organization led by smart, single-minded people. As Theresa puts it, "the tolerance for idiots in powerful positions is very low right now."
quote:To them, they simply saw it as victory, without even considering what victory meant. I don't think any of them would have said publicly or privately that they wanted to commit genocide against the Buggers, but, really, what else could victory have meant under the circumstances?
"Publically" isn't the question, the entire invasion was a secret, after all. But are you really suggesting that they equipped the ships with WMDs without discussing all the ways those weapons might be used? That seems like a very far-fetched idea to me, to be honest.
quote:They didn't leave the decision up to a teenager, they outlawed it.
Certainly they left it up to him, and deliberately so. There was no need to give him as free a hand in conducting the campaign as he had. You don't give a child a stick of dynamite, tell him it's harmless but that he's not allowed to light the fuse, without considering the possibility that the child might not heed, do you?
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posted
Well, politicians and bureaucrats are uniformly self-deluded. They see, know, and think about only what serves them. So, I really do think many of them never consciously admitted to themselves what 'vicotry' really meant under these circumstances.
Old men and Politicians who start wars, tend to focus on duty, honor, glory, God, Country, victory and other high sounding terms, because they can't allow themselves to think of the horrors of war. They wrap themselves in nobility as a way of avoiding the reality.
It is they young men who do the actual fighting that are left to deal with the blood, guts, and death of war.
So, yes, I think a very great many of the people who sat in board rooms dreaming up this war and these weapons, very much deluded themselves into ignoring the reality of this particular war and these particular weapons.
I also don't think they thought or hoped Ender would use the DR Device against the planet. I think they saw the situation just as hopeless and lost as Ender did.
Also, to some extent they needed the planets. The voyage back would be very very long. The best way for the soldiers in the spaceship to survive and endure, was not for them to turn around and go home, but for them to take over the planets and live there.
I think subconsciously, and with a rare few -consciously, they did know that war meant total genocide, but it was a reality they couldn't face and wouldn't contemplate. They wanted victory, but didn't want to know what that meant.
Old men are always more comfortable when they can deal with the romantic fantasy of war, while ignoring the harsh and painful realities.
But the core question is, 'Did Mazer want Ender to commit Xenocide?', and I think the answer is NO. He did not want him to, but was more than happy to accept the fact that he did.
quote:Old men are always more comfortable when they can deal with the romantic fantasy of war, while ignoring the harsh and painful realities.
Well, that seems to be where our opinions differ. While I completely agree with the statement as such, of course, my impression is that (a) Graff and Mazer are a completely different kind of "old men" - they don't give a dam about romantic notions, and have devoted their lives to a cause precisely because they have faced those harsh and painful realities. And that (b) the IF is dominated by men just like them, though perhaps not quite as brilliant and ruthless. As far as (a) is concerned, I think there's plenty of support for what I'm saying. (b) is harder to defend, clearly.
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posted
To be completely frank, I don't think the story holds up to this level of inspection. Once you start asking whether the generals knew all the bugger queens were on one world, or expected Ender to commit genocide, or had some reason for not sending newer, better, faster ships to the bugger homeworld to assist the old ships they initially sent, or even whether Card really meant for the buggers to have discovered MD technology and simply never thought to weaponize it, the novel begins to fall apart too quickly. The situation is extremely contrived to produce the dilemmas on which the novel hangs; if you start picking at the contrivances themselves to look for deeper meaning, I think you'll ultimately reduce the power of the story itself.
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You're right, of course. I think most of the problems can be traced back to the not-always-quite-dovetailing of the short story's plot and the novel's backstory. Several bits and pieces of the novel seem just a little off, and the reason mostly is that those were taken straight from the short story.
But no matter, the name of the game is to come up with internally consistent explanations anyway, no matter how far-fetched, no?
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posted
OSC is a storyteller. That's where he excels. He's not a perfectionist plotter. His aim is the emotional and story impact for when you're reading it. If you start picking at storytellers, you're going to find some inconsistencies, but that's sort of missing the point.
It's like faulting an impressionist painting for not accurately displaying a real life object.
But, yeah, it can be fun to puzzle out a way for things to fit. But, if you want to get the most enjoyment out of OSC's books, leave that for afterwards and realize that it's not the type of writing he does.
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quote:It's like faulting an impressionist painting for not accurately displaying a real life object.
Hmph. Odd analogy. To me, this sort of nitpicking is more like faulting a painting for technical imperfections. The non-realism of an impressionist depiction is a deliberate, stylistic choice which is as relevant to the work as the matter that is depicted. An author can introduce non-realism into a story in the same vein - and now that you mention it, the "Ender's Game" short story does have a certain quality to it that one could characterize as impressionist.
But inconsistencies of the type discussed here are more like, say, flakey paint or a crooked frame (sorry, I'm not very familiar with painting, best I could think of). I.e. something that was not intended by the creator to contribute to the artistic whole and that the viewer/reader, once noticed, has to spend a certain amount of effort on blocking out in order not to skew the appreciation of the work.
I don't mean to sound overly critical, I entirely agree that Card is an excellent storyteller, but he is one in spite of and not because of minor issues like this one.
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quote:It's like faulting an impressionist painting for not accurately displaying a real life object.
Hmph. Odd analogy. To me, this sort of nitpicking is more like faulting a painting for technical imperfections.
Imperfections according to who? All finished works of art are ideally judged not according to a certain technical standard, but against the context of the work itself, ie: in a successful work of art, there are no imperfections, only peculiarities or departures from expected norms. This applies as much to the perspective in a Picasso painting as to the plotting in a novel- it is not required of the artist to adhere to a verisimilar aesthetic, only to an internally and or artistically congruous aesthetic.
The success of a work of art depends on internal consistency and effectiveness, but does not depend on outward expectations of consistency, and in fact many fine novels flout expectations in order to achieve an effect. So you can't dismiss out of hand the possibility that OSC blurs the timelines and causative relationships of events in his novels, even allowing for internal disagreement, in order to achieve an artistic effect, and that he does so successfully. In fact, you would have a very hard time arguing that the instances of internal disagreement that OSC introduces are not effective at establishing the tone of his writing, and the nature of his stories, because there are very clear advantages to this style of plotting. Namely, OSC has established, in this series especially, the lack of dependability in the narration when it comes to disclosing a great deal of key information. There are dozens of instances where the narration reveals elements of the story post hoc, or even rewrites the narrative, hugely effecting the previous interpretations of events. You cannot claim that as an invalid mode of expression.
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Oh, sorry, I guess I wasn't being specific enough. According to the artist, or, if unavailable for comment, according to "common sense", by which I mean cases in which there's no good reason to assume that the artist intended for those imperfections to occur. Either way, I certainly don't mean anything along the lines of "perspective in a Picasso". As I said, I don't know all that much about painting, so I'm having trouble coming up with better examples than the two I gave above. A clear-cut literary case would be the climactic battle in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", in which two magical effects occur in the wrong order, according to the established in-universe rules. Rowling acknowledged the mistake (and blamed it on the editor, but that's neither here nor there) and it was IIRC even fixed in later editions. That's probably a good criterion for the kind of imperfections I mean, actually - those that the artist would like to remove, given the opportunity.
quote:So you can't dismiss out of hand the possibility that OSC blurs the timelines and causative relationships of events in his novels, even allowing for internal disagreement, in order to achieve an artistic effect, and that he does so successfully.
Fair point. The question then becomes what standard one measured success by. I freely admit that my own standard may be skewed - the one area in which inconsistency bothers me much more than in any other is motivation. If a character acts in a way that I don't understand or that doesn't mesh with the general standard for that character, as established by the sum of his previous actions, without explanation, I can't help but feel annoyed by it.
quote:Namely, OSC has established, in this series especially, the lack of dependability in the narration when it comes to disclosing a great deal of key information. [...] You cannot claim that as an invalid mode of expression.
Certainly. I think the Unreliable Narrator is an excellent mode of storytelling. But in order for it to be effective the unreliability has to serve a purpose, such as illustrating the narrator's perspective, increasing tension by concealing and then revealing information in a non-linear manner, etc. If UN is used simply as a hand-waving way to explain away disagreements between parts of a series which were caused by authorial inattention or changes-of-mind about the ideal way for the series to develop, it is usually fairly obvious and doesn't do much good.
And, to get back to the point, I am quite certain that both kinds of UN are present in the Ender series. The author says as much himself, if I'm not mistaken.
PS:
quote:Imperfections according to who?
Hey, are we speaking Common in this forum? Sorry, couldn't resist...
posted
Actually who is acceptable in that instance, considering the subject of the clause was not a pronoun, and the sentence is a fragment with no primary object, the meaning is no more confusing with or without "whom" as the secondary object.
quote: And, to get back to the point, I am quite certain that both kinds of UN are present in the Ender series. The author says as much himself, if I'm not mistaken.
I find this to be one of OSC's weakest positions in the sphere of literary criticism. He is more and more of the George Lucas School of authorial revisionism, and it has weakened his work, and even worse, allowed him to weaken the works he wrote when he was at the height of his abilities.
I say, let the mistakes stand. Let the contradictions be glaring if they are there- and for god's sake don't remove the N-word from your novel just because you're concerned about it hurting your political or financial standing, and then if you do remove the N-word for the above noted reasons, don't lie about it to your fans and make up fallacious reasons why the book is better without it.
Han shot first. Ender used the N-word.
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quote:Actually who is acceptable in that instance, considering the subject of the clause was not a pronoun, and the sentence is a fragment with no primary object, the meaning is no more confusing with or without "whom" as the secondary object.
For a given definition of "acceptable," of course, where "acceptable" means "not unclear." Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:the George Lucas School of authorial revisionism
Ick, yes, thanks for bringing that up. I hadn't even noticed how easily one could mistake my position for that sort of nonsense. Canon is canon, the only two acceptable ways to construct sequels are to adhere to it or not, but never to change it after the fact.
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kassyopeia: But inconsistencies of the type discussed here are more like, say, flakey paint or a crooked frame ...
Yes, but is it an inconsistency or is it something you don't know or understand? That is a very different thing.
The original question is whether Mazer or anyone else wanted Ender to commit Xenocide? The extension of the question is whether anyone involve consciously thought about what victory really meant? That it meant Xenocide.
Just because the author chose not to explain every characters view point on this issue hardly constitutes an inconsistency. It is simply a secondary issue that is left up to the reader to imagine.
The point of view character is Ender, for the most part, if he doesn't think it or experience it, we don't know about it. Ender can hardly think other people's thoughts for them, or read their minds.
It is only an inconsistency in your mind because you choose not to imagine a logical explanation, or imagine how others in the story might have thought and felt about the issue before it occurred.
Just because something isn't know to you, doesn't make it an inconsistency.
posted
This question requires consideration of the myriad perspectives of different people in the equation. Let's start with Ender. Until AFTER the fact (xenocide) Ender doesn't know he's fighting the Formics. He believes it's Mazer, manipulating him in an endless series of battles that tax him beyond his emotional and physical limits. To him, it's still an unfair game that he's being forced to play. This is why he decides to screw Mazer's silly rules. The advice about the MD is given with the explanation that using it would invite retaliation in kind. To Ender, Mazer can retaliate in any degree that he may choose, he simply doesn't care anymore. He uses the MD on a planet and commits Genocide, only to be devastated at the news of what he has truly wrought. Mazer: The buggers are, had he known the classification system, capable of rational thought, but will not concede to any negotation. To him, the death of the buggers is the condition required for survival of the human race. Considering that Bugger technology is so much more superior than that of Human technology, Mazer must know that using this tactic in the course of fighting the buggers in a purely offensive strategy will invite the buggers to use whatever arsenal they have, especially since fending Ender off is a requisite action to THEIR survival. He is also oblivious to what the Formics know about Ender and the human race. While he doesn't advocate Ender's using the MD on a planet, he also doesn't stop Ender from using it in the last battle. Does this constitute his allowing, perhaps encouraging Ender's act of Xenocide? maybe. I just believe that Mazer was as stunned as Ender was at the seemingly insurmountable odds, and the only way victory was achieved was the unconscious answer given by the smartest being available, Bean: Bean fully knows that it's a real battle. It is only suiting that being an individual completely devoted to his own survival, he would be the one to (unconsciously) suggest the use of the MD on the buggers planet (with the knowledge that it is their last refuge). In fact, since he does not know what the buggers think of humans or that they are capable of peace, he would be the strongest advocate of using the MD. The Buggers: This is where the tragedy lies. The buggers have found out that the human race are individuals that are capable of sentient thought, and that every individual is able to reproduce to create another thinking, breathing, aiua. Imagine, if you will, a Formic queen finding another formic colony from another queen that she has never seen or heard of before, and cannot communicate with. To the queens of the first and second invasion, the individual soldiers and ships that were destroyed by them was LESS than snipping off the toenails of another being. When they learned otherwise and attempt to communicate with an individual that was bent entirely on killing them off one by one, imagine their anguish. They have realized that not only are humans sentient and capable of peace, but they have also murdered thousands of them in the past, and in so doing, incurred their wrath by striking the first blow. They thought humans were varelse, but have unwittingly made themselves ramen, or worse, to that species. That is why, despite the fact that buggers should have superior technology, they refrain from using it to invade Earth. Why didn't they use this to fend off Ender? We will never know. Maybe they knew that Earth would never stop until they were destroyed. Maybe they felt guilty. Maybe they already had their cocoon in a safehaven for Ender to find and resigned to their fates. But they were the only ones who knew both sides of the conflict, and unable to remove the tool of the species that would destroy them, nobly sacrifice themselves so that one day the tool that was able to understand them enough to destroy them would become the tool that would understand them enough to become their savior. They are, ultimately, most noble.
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quote:It is only an inconsistency in your mind because you choose not to imagine a logical explanation, or imagine how others in the story might have thought and felt about the issue before it occurred.
No, no, you're misunderstanding me.
Accepting your premise (that the IF types are for the most part "romantic old men"), your explanation follows directly: The seeming contradiction between Mazer's instruction before and his reaction after the battle is simply the product of his self-delusion. But I don't accept your premise, neither about Mazer in particular nor about the IF in general. I now have the choice to either construct a more elaborate explanation (such as that Mazer's instruction was never meant to be followed but had precisely the intended effect) or view this as something that cannot be explained within the story-universe at all, making it an inconsistency. But having the choice doesn't mean I need to make it, I'm quite happy to speculate about in-universe explanations even if it's "really" (whatever that word means in this context) nothing more than an inconsistency caused by leftover elements from the short story version.
After all, we're perfectly happy to think on both levels simultaneously for things that are consistent. Why is the protagonist called Ender? Is it because Valentine couldn't quite pronounce Andrew, or is it because Card wanted the title to sound like "end game"? Both, of course.
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quote:I just believe that Mazer was as stunned as Ender was at the seemingly insurmountable odd
Right, that's an important factor. If we accept that assumption, Mazer may honestly have hoped that Ender would be able to destroy merely the fleet. The question then becomes what the IF was planning for the aftermath of that victory. There is some mention in "Exile" about an intended ground war, but considering the relative strengths of the available human ground forces and the virtually intact Formic civilization, the idea does seem somewhat ludicrous.
quote:Bean [is] the one to (unconsciously) suggest the use of the MD on the buggers planet (with the knowledge that it is their last refuge).
Ah, I had quite forgotten about him in this respect. Very good point. In essence, then, we could say that the combination of Mazer's and Bean's remarks nudged Ender into xenocide. Maybe I'm subconsciously extrapolating that since the one knew just the right thing to say, so did the other. Which may or may not be valid, depending on how we rate their respective skills at understanding and manipulating Ender. Both have shown some subtlety in this area.
quote:To the queens of the first and second invasion, the individual soldiers and ships that were destroyed by them was LESS than snipping off the toenails of another being.
To be honest, that part seems a little contrived to me, but I'm not complaining because the contrivance is essential to the story. It's never made quite clear whether the Formics believed the human species to be completely without sentience, or for the sentience to be located somewhere other than in average members of it. In the former case, they must have assumed humans to be either unintelligent, which would be stupid considering how similar the technologies are, or intelligent but unaware, which is an odd notion but perhaps the best explanation in the end. In the latter case, their behaviour seems rather thoughtless - to stick with the example, I would consider it quite rude for a stranger to walk up to me and start clipping my nails, even though I don't value my own nail clippings very highly.
quote:That is why, despite the fact that buggers should have superior technology, they refrain from using it to invade Earth. Why didn't they use this to fend off Ender? We will never know.
There's some speculation about that in the books, by Ender IIRC: They followed the only course of action open to them, constrained by their abilities and ethics.
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posted
You people are asking the wrong question. Mazer Rackham doesn't exist, he is a fictional character. The question isn't why Mazer said X and whether he believed it but why OSC had Mazer say X.
Asking whether or not Mazer wanted Ender to commit Xenocide is like asking whether or not Mazer liked hershey's chocolate. Mazer doesn't exist except in the stories and perhaps back story that Card has yet to write.
And yes, I know you all know this, but the way you are asking the questions makes it look like you don't really understand the implications.
Because this is just a story, the only meaningful question is why Card chose to write the story this way.
The adults in Ender's Game choose to let children command the army because they think children are more capable of thinking outside the box. They choose Ender to command because Ender can see things in a way that they can't see them and do things that they either would not think of doing or would find unthinkable. If they had had a clear idea what they wanted Ender to do, they would simply have done it themselves. They wanted him to do things they would not think of doing. That's the point. If you are asking whether or not they were intentionally manipulating him to commit Xenocide, you missed the point of the book.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: You people are asking the wrong question. Mazer Rackham doesn't exist, he is a fictional character. The question isn't why Mazer said X and whether he believed it but why OSC had Mazer say X.
Asking whether or not Mazer wanted Ender to commit Xenocide is like asking whether or not Mazer liked hershey's chocolate. Mazer doesn't exist except in the stories and perhaps back story that Card has yet to write.
And yes, I know you all know this, but the way you are asking the questions makes it look like you don't really understand the implications.
Because this is just a story, the only meaningful question is why Card chose to write the story this way.
I see nothing wrong with speculation of this sort. Fictional charachters can be analyzed for the motivations the same as nonfiction. Both are speculative regardless.
The adults in Ender's Game choose to let children command the army because they think children are more capable of thinking outside the box. They choose Ender to command because Ender can see things in a way that they can't see them and do things that they either would not think of doing or would find unthinkable. If they had had a clear idea what they wanted Ender to do, they would simply have done it themselves.
I don't agree with this statement. The reason they can't do it themselves is the same reason they use children. They don't have the skills to command a fleet in the same way these trained children do. As premised in the book, adults are not risk takers. Ender was chosen for a number of reasons, but the main one was that he could plan dynamically in a way the adults couldn't. Given the odds of the last battle, what adult could have maneuvered the fleet into a position to fire the Little Doctor at the planet. It took a finnesse and skill that only Ender or perhaps Bean possessed.
Posts: 197 | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:I see nothing wrong with speculation of this sort. Fictional charachters can be analyzed for the motivations the same as nonfiction. Both are speculative regardless.
There is a real a significant difference between speculating on a real persons motivations and speculating on a fictional characters motivations. A real person will in fact have a motivation for the way they act. It may not be conscious and you may have no means of knowing that motivation, but it does actually exist. The same can not be said of a fictional character.
The fact of the matter is that Mazer Rackham didn't say or do anything, ever. OSC said it. OSC definitely had some motivation for saying it, but the imaginary character, Mayer, likely did not. Its entirely possible that the Card's primary point when writing that line was to develope Mazer's character, in which case the author was probably imagining some motivation for that line and its worth speculating about. But it is more likely (given the context of the book) that when Card wrote that line the primary purpose was to advance the plot. It was to make it absolutely clear to the reader that Ender knew the consequences of firing the Little Doctor at a planet and knew it was something his teachers considered unacceptable. Speculating about what Mazer really thought and what his motivations were is missing the point.
You might as well be speculating about whether or not Mazer go a bicycle for his 10th birthday. Its irrelevant to the story.
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posted
Bah! I think the text makes it very clear that Mazer's own stroke of lucky genius is owed entirely to the Huffy he did not get for his tenth birthday.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: The adults in Ender's Game choose to let children command the army because they think children are more capable of thinking outside the box. They choose Ender to command because Ender can see things in a way that they can't see them and do things that they either would not think of doing or would find unthinkable. If they had had a clear idea what they wanted Ender to do, they would simply have done it themselves.
I don't agree with this statement. The reason they can't do it themselves is the same reason they use children. They don't have the skills to command a fleet in the same way these trained children do. As premised in the book, adults are not risk takers. Ender was chosen for a number of reasons, but the main one was that he could plan dynamically in a way the adults couldn't. Given the odds of the last battle, what adult could have maneuvered the fleet into a position to fire the Little Doctor at the planet. It took a finnesse and skill that only Ender or perhaps Bean possessed.
Card makes two thinks evident repeatedly throughout the book.
1. Ender unique ability was able to see things from outside the box that limits most peoples understanding. This is repeated over and over again starting with Ender's observations about directions in a zero gravity environment. This is why he was chosen. This is what made him a good strategist. He was not limited by conventional ways of seeing things.
2. (and in many ways this is should really be sub point of 1 but its important enough to make it separate) Ender was willing to break the unwritten rules. That is the point of the playground fight in the very beginning of the book.
To me, finesse implies highly refined skill. Perhaps this is not what you mean, but if you think that the adults in Ender's Game chose to work with children because their skills were more refined than adults, then its a ridiculous story. There is no way that children can out finesse adults who have years of practice. The children were chosen for their creativity, for there ability to see things that those who are highly practiced and trained no longer see. Ender's team was able to maneuver the ships to fire the little doctor at the planet not because they were better at the mechanics of maneuvering ships but because they were able to see unique opportunities that adult eyes would miss. Adults see the world from inside a box of unwritten rules, children do not. In fact, it is the very nature of children to push the limits of the box.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Bah! I think the text makes it very clear that Mazer's own stroke of lucky genius is owed entirely to the Huffy he did not get for his tenth birthday.
Well, if he had the kind of parents who would buy a 10 year old a Huffy, that explains a great deal.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:The question isn't why Mazer said X [...] but why OSC had Mazer say X.
Sure, but the former is generally understood as shorthand for the latter. Constant references to the author don't add anything to the dialog but merely bloat it. If your point is that one shouldn't get carried away and start thinking of fictional characters as being subject to the same fundamental laws as real people (causality and suchlike), then I agree to an extent, but would contend that the only meaningful way to absorb fiction is to pretend that those laws do apply, unless there is a specific reason not to.
quote:Asking whether or not Mazer wanted Ender to commit Xenocide is like asking whether or not Mazer liked hershey's chocolate.
The difference is one of a degree - there isn't much hope of answering the one, and even if there were, it wouldn't be terribly interesting. Not so for the other (IMO).
quote:If they had had a clear idea what they wanted Ender to do, they would simply have done it themselves.
I have a clear idea what I want the hammer to do when I use it to hit a nail, yet I choose not to use my fist because I think the hammer is better suited for the task.
quote:If you are asking whether or not they were intentionally manipulating him to commit Xenocide, you missed the point of the book.
That is what I'm asking, and I'm not convinced that the book has such a thing as "the point" that can be either hit or missed, it seems quite multi-faceted to me. I might as well claim that you've missed "the point" of this thread, since it is clearly to be taken from an in-universe perspective and by ascribing motivations to Card you're stepping outside the universe, but that would be a narrow and silly way of looking at this discussion.
Posts: 96 | Registered: Jun 2009
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posted
Kassyopeia, I am on a military installation, and imagine my surprise when I found EIE in the library, the only book that I havent read so far. Imagine my surprise when Ender was thinking about the same thing I was pondering in this forum, namely, why did they bunch themselves up? And the answer is given, albeit subtly. Ender gains a small fleeting insight into the Queen's mind when a captain says that the human race would be looking over our shoulders for tens of thousands of years had the last invasion failed. Thus, my original hypothesis stands, the buggers realized that they had unknowingly attempted xenocide, and that they had brought the wrath of humanity upon themselves, a race that they were unable to communicate with. But, there was one hope for communication. Ender, who was capable of infinite empathy (IMO, his main strength as commander, and the desired trait from JP Wiggin's genes) would be the boy that would make their sacrifice worthwhile.
Posts: 10 | Registered: Jul 2009
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quote:I see nothing wrong with speculation of this sort. Fictional charachters can be analyzed for the motivations the same as nonfiction. Both are speculative regardless.
There is a real a significant difference between speculating on a real persons motivations and speculating on a fictional characters motivations. A real person will in fact have a motivation for the way they act. It may not be conscious and you may have no means of knowing that motivation, but it does actually exist. The same can not be said of a fictional character.
The fact of the matter is that Mazer Rackham didn't say or do anything, ever. OSC said it. OSC definitely had some motivation for saying it, but the imaginary character, Mayer, likely did not. Its entirely possible that the Card's primary point when writing that line was to develope Mazer's character, in which case the author was probably imagining some motivation for that line and its worth speculating about. But it is more likely (given the context of the book) that when Card wrote that line the primary purpose was to advance the plot. It was to make it absolutely clear to the reader that Ender knew the consequences of firing the Little Doctor at a planet and knew it was something his teachers considered unacceptable. Speculating about what Mazer really thought and what his motivations were is missing the point.
You might as well be speculating about whether or not Mazer go a bicycle for his 10th birthday. Its irrelevant to the story.
Now who can argue with that? I think we're all indebted to The Rabbit for clearly stating what needed to be said. Not only was it authentic authorial intent gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age.
Posts: 14 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Like you would be one to comment on "this day and age." Enlist in the Army and you'll see courage that is timeless.
Posts: 10 | Registered: Jul 2009
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