# Some questions about Ender's Game \*spoilers\* **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 10, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854 "2011-09-10T21:35:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/21 "2011-09-13T02:30:10Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I’ve been reading Card (or tried to, sometimes I just didn’t like his books) since I read what is for me the best SF short story ever, “Unaccompanied sonata”. > > Since I’ve read quite a lot of his books, and tend not to remember much of the stories after a while, I can’t pinpoint in which novel, but I’m pretty certain that in one of them, one of the main characters has an homosexual relationship that is depicted sensibly and positively. Does anybody remember that? > > Assuming that I’m not mistaken, how to explain that he can depict positively such a relation as a writer, but be such an homophobe in real life? It totally puzzles me. Are you thinking of _[Hamlet’s Father?](http://www.queerty.com/orson-scott-card-rewrote-hamlet-with-gay-characters-so-why-does-everyone-hate-him-20110908/)_ Gay characters but not really pro-gay in message. Disclaimer, haven’t read it, don’t want to. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/22 "2011-09-13T02:57:01Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Since I’ve read quite a lot of his books, and tend not to remember much of the stories after a while, I can’t pinpoint in which novel, but I’m pretty certain that in one of them, one of the main characters has an homosexual relationship that is depicted sensibly and positively. Does anybody remember that? You may be thinking of [Songmaster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songmaster). It’s been a long, long time since I read that, but IIRC there was a strong undercurrent of “forbidden love so wonderful that it must be resisted (lest no one make babies)” going on in there. And (that relationship was) self-destructive by authorial intent, according to his quote on wiki. So not too surprised when he entered the frothing-at-the-typewriter stage of the braineater. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/23 "2011-09-13T03:05:44Z")
> [@maggenpye](#): > > Are you thinking of _[Hamlet’s Father?](http://www.queerty.com/orson-scott-card-rewrote-hamlet-with-gay-characters-so-why-does-everyone-hate-him-20110908/)_ Gay characters but not really pro-gay in message. > > Disclaimer, haven’t read it, don’t want to. Definitely not. I never heard of this book, and if the description is accurate…😕:eek:😕 ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/24 "2011-09-13T03:24:23Z")
> [@Lightray](#): > > You may be thinking of [Songmaster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songmaster). It’s been a long, long time since I read that, but IIRC there was a strong undercurrent of “forbidden love so wonderful that it must be resisted (lest no one make babies)” going on in there. > > And (that relationship was) self-destructive by authorial intent, according to his quote on wiki. So not too surprised when he entered the frothing-at-the-typewriter stage of the braineater. That’s most probably it. As usual, I don’t remember well the story, but I think that love was emphatized, which was probably the reason why I read it as a positive depiction of…homosexuality..??.. (why does it suddenly cross my mind that “homosexuality” is a problematic word because it only refers to sexuality?). As for self-destruction being the authorial intent, it was totally lost on me. From the few I remember, there was definitely characters bent on self-destruction, but love (or sex) wasn’t the cause. Power was, as far as I remember. I’m wondering when Card came up with that interpretation of his own book and if it was really his intent when he wrote it. Maybe dopers remembering this book better than I do could chime in and give their opinion (especially gay dopers)? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/25 "2011-09-13T06:38:02Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > … I still think that even in armed conflict there’s no need to use a sledgehammer when a scalpel will do. That’s true, but in Ender’s situation, and the human’s predicament, how could they know a scalpel would do? My take on why Ender killed, the bullies and the aliens in the 'test" is – to end the fight, finally and for good. No enemy left who could recover and come back at him later. He was really THE Ender. And as to the question of lack of control – his trainers were deliberately driving him insane. So in his little bubble of ‘reality’, killing was a reasonable action, ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/26 "2011-09-13T13:08:16Z")
> [@maggenpye](#): > > I was thinking about this last night. > > Ender’s final destruction of the Hive Queen was a deliberate over reaction on his part. Just as he’d done with the bully at the beginning of the book, he was trying to stop any further fighting. He hopes that by committing an atrocity during the ‘practice’ fighting, they will remove him from the programme and he will never have to actually fight the war. > > Unfortunately, just like with the original fight, that was exactly what the adults were hoping for. They knew he had too much empathy to commit what amounted to genocide, so they lied as they had lied about withdrawing observation so they could see how he reacted. > > Also, his older siblings were examples of what the generals were wanting - his brother had the violence without the strategy, his sister had the strategy without the violence. While Ender was capabale of using violence strategically (the bully), he was also capable of talking his brother out of killing his sister and Ender. The issue was that, in order to be a truly successful warrior, Ender had to understand his enemy thoroughly - which required empathy. Then, at the moment that Ender totaly understood (and empathized with) his enemy - in effect, loved his enemy, since total empathy is equivalent to love - he _destroyed_ his enemy, totally and finally, with utter ruthlessness, so that his enemy wasn’t capable of hurting him any more. His sister had the empathy but not the ruthlessness, his brother the ruthlessness but not the empathy. According to the book at least, ruthlessness is most successful when guided by, informed by, empathy - which is what Ender did. It was not that Ender was capable of either violence or diplomatic strategy. It was more that the violence was so much more effective if the wielder of the violence was capable of true understanding of the subject of the violence … the problem being of course that using violence and empathy in this way came close to breaking Ender. ---
**Author:** ![Tanbarkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/27 "2011-09-13T13:42:43Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > The issue was that, in order to be a truly successful warrior, Ender had to understand his enemy thoroughly - which required empathy. Then, at the moment that Ender totaly understood (and empathized with) his enemy - in effect, loved his enemy, since total empathy is equivalent to love - he _destroyed_ his enemy, totally and finally, with utter ruthlessness, so that his enemy wasn’t capable of hurting him any more. > > His sister had the empathy but not the ruthlessness, his brother the ruthlessness but not the empathy. According to the book at least, ruthlessness is most successful when guided by, informed by, empathy - which is what Ender did. > > It was not that Ender was capable of either violence or diplomatic strategy. It was more that the violence was so much more effective if the wielder of the violence was capable of true understanding of the subject of the violence … the problem being of course that using violence and empathy in this way came close to breaking Ender. Yes, this exactly. And the purpose of concealing the reality of the “test” from Ender was the adults’ assumption that someone with that level of empathy for the enemy would never willingly order their destruction. It’s hinted throughout the book (but never overtly stated, IIRC) that Ender would actually have been quite capable of doing so - he does, after all, annihilate Stilson and Bonzo, after “understanding” them fully. And it’s not that he wouldn’t feel guilty about his actions, because he would. After all, Ender’s guilt over Stilson and Bonzo’s beatings (and, once he finds out about it, their deaths) is a major part of who he is, and is used as a demonstration of that empathy that Graff and the other adults value. So he would certainly be wracked with guilt and grief over the genocide of the buggers. But I think, given the same situation but without the deception, he would have given the go-ahead to use the Little Doctor against the bugger homeworld anyway. As is, Ender’s Jesus Complex over the destruction of the buggers pretty much drives the plot of every subsequent Ender book. To the point where his willingness to bear the sins of all mankind has become rather over-the-top, sadly. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/28 "2011-09-13T14:45:26Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Assuming that I’m not mistaken, how to explain that he can depict positively such a relation as a writer, but be such an homophobe in real life? It totally puzzles me. This is a classic pattern. You decide that you are obligated to deny yourself, because you owe it to your church and community to get married to woman and have kids. Then you look around and see all the people who refused to make the same choice, and you hate them because their lives are a slap in the face to your sacrifice. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/29 "2011-09-13T14:51:27Z")
On the movie, I had the opportunity to talk with Card back in…2001? 2002? Even back then they were several years into talks of a movie adaptation. By then, they’d signed on a director, even signed on Jake Lloyd as Ender, and Card was working through a first draft of the screenplay. But it just fell through. Jake became too old, the Director went on to other projects, and it just never got off the ground. Part of the issue is the kids, obviously. You’re lucky to get one good kid actor but here, the entire movie centers around having a huge group of child actors who could convince you that they’re basically little adults and not children. Card mentioned that at one point, a studio exec did ask the question posited in the OP: can Ender be 16? Card pretty much laughed him out of the room. On the divergent topic of when Card started to take a turn in his writing, I have a theory and I think it bears up based upon the dates that I looked up. Xenocide was published in 1991 and starts to take a turn into Christianity, the nature of what a soul is, and other aspects wildly divergent from the Ender series you knew in Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead\*. You see it somewhat pop up in 1990’s Worthing Saga but that’s so cluttered with sex and drugs and all sorts of other things, it kinda gets lost in the shuffle. By 1996’s Children of the Mind, it’s full on now. So what happened between 1990-1991 and 1996? The Homecoming Saga. Five books in 5 years that reshapes and reimagines the entire book of Mormon under a science fiction setting. Now, I thought this was an excellent series, but I also think that the research Card must have done to create this had a profound effect on his life and his outlook. So much so, that it has influenced his books ever since. \*though, interestingly, the idea of Speaker for the Dead was written indepently of Ender’s Game and it was only late in the process that Card realized he needed a first book, drawing on the Novella he wrote back in 1977 to make the Speaker Ender Wiggin. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/30 "2011-09-13T15:59:13Z")
Interestingly, the “Homecoming” series features a gay character who marries a woman and (with some difficulty) fathers children with her. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/31 "2011-09-13T20:46:49Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > By then, they’d signed on a director, even signed on Jake Lloyd as Ender, I’m sorry, I just can’t get past the image of Ender Wiggin cheering “Now **this** is pod racing!” ---
**Author:** ![Tanbarkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/32 "2011-09-13T20:48:28Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Interestingly, the “Homecoming” series features a gay character who marries a woman and (with some difficulty) fathers children with her. That fits with Card’s general assertion that marriage exists to produce babies, and ergo gay marriage is unnatural because it cannot produce babies. Or something. Why that excludes infertile heterosexual couples from eternal hellfire remains… unclear. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/33 "2011-09-13T21:00:05Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > I’m sorry, I just can’t get past the image of Ender Wiggin cheering “Now **this** is pod racing!” Yeah really. Thank god that never came to fruition. ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/34 "2011-09-13T21:11:36Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > The issue was that, in order to be a truly successful warrior, Ender had to understand his enemy thoroughly - which required empathy. Then, at the moment that Ender totaly understood (and empathized with) his enemy - in effect, loved his enemy, since total empathy is equivalent to love - he _destroyed_ his enemy, totally and finally, with utter ruthlessness, so that his enemy wasn’t capable of hurting him any more. > > His sister had the empathy but not the ruthlessness, his brother the ruthlessness but not the empathy. According to the book at least, ruthlessness is most successful when guided by, informed by, empathy - which is what Ender did. > > It was not that Ender was capable of either violence or diplomatic strategy. It was more that the violence was so much more effective if the wielder of the violence was capable of true understanding of the subject of the violence … the problem being of course that using violence and empathy in this way came close to breaking Ender. That’s pretty much what I wanted to say, but expressed better. Ender understood the game in terms of having empathy with his enemies & knowing what will make them incapable of retaliation, but never understood the game the adults were playing with him. There’s layers. Ender used the same tactic of an ultra violent response in both his first fight with the bully and in the final battle with the buggers, not because he was ruthless, but because it was his best option for ending the battles (either with the other kids or getting out of the battle school program). The adults were playing a different game. They left Ender believing he was unprotected in the first school fight to see how he’d react and compare that against Peter & Valentine. In the final battle they let him believe it was a simulation so he’d take risks his empathy wouldn’t permit with real pilots or real genocide at stake. It’s also a literary technique of bookending, where similar scenes are played out at the start and end of a story. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/35 "2011-09-13T21:23:15Z")
> [@Tanbarkie](#): > > That fits with Card’s general assertion that marriage exists to produce babies, and ergo gay marriage is unnatural because it cannot produce babies. Or something. Why that excludes infertile heterosexual couples from eternal hellfire remains… unclear. I can’t remember where, but I remember in one of his homophobic rants Card saying a bunch of things that didn’t strike me as the kind of things that a straight man would say, but that a seriously closeted gay man in denial of what he was would say. ---
**Author:** ![keeganst94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@keeganst94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeganst94)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/36 "2011-09-14T01:30:48Z")
The movie is basically in development hell for a few reasons. First, Card is quite involved with the film, and demands that it be quite close to the book. Second, no director is really gung ho about it. I think 4 or 5 have signed on, then dropped out. Then you have to assemble a bunch of talented child actors. And the movie would be expensive-all the space battles and the zero-g and what not. It’s still being made, though, so some hope still exists. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/37 "2011-09-14T03:03:45Z")
You could make it a nearly-all CGI movie nowadays. That makes it a lot easier–the voice actors can be tweens and teens, but animated as kids. And Ibn Warraq, there are all sorts of anti-gay crusaders whose message boils down to “Gay sex is so amazingly pleasurable that if we don’t supress it with every social tool available, everyone would be doing it all the time.” It’s a very strange belief for a straight person to have. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854/38 "2011-09-14T03:25:02Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > You could make it a nearly-all CGI movie nowadays. That makes it a lot easier–the voice actors can be tweens and teens, but animated as kids. > > And Ibn Warraq, there are all sorts of anti-gay crusaders whose message boils down to “Gay sex is so amazingly pleasurable that if we don’t supress it with every social tool available, everyone would be doing it all the time.” It’s a very strange belief for a straight person to have. True, but it’s a not so strange belief for closet cases to have. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-enders-game-spoilers/595854.md?page=1)