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chris_gerribMy only exposure to Ender's Game was by reading the novella, decades ago. As I remember it, Ender won the war by having his fleet plunge into the Bugger / Formic's sun, sterilizing the planet via solar flares. There was, in short, a large element of self-sacrifice.
Having read this long but interesting commentary on Ender's Game (found via this thread), I see that in the novel, Ender wins by essentially deploying a nuclear device, which doesn't seem to involve sacrificing the human fleet.
But there's an interesting line in the long commentary to the effect of "if I [John Kessel, the author] had had access to a nuclear weapon in 7th grade my school would have ended up under a mushroom cloud." Kessel then ties that idea, common in schoolkids, that the world is against them into why Ender's Game is so popular and uses it to reject the "7th grade morality" of the book. Specifically, Kessel rejects the idea that only the intentions of the person matter when determining morality.
I'll take a different tack. What OSC has created in Ender Wiggins is a more articulate version of the kid that takes a gun to school and shoots the place up. The same "me vs. the cold cruel world" mindset of the school shooter is baked into Ender. In OSC's defense, the world really is against Ender, and also in OSC's defense, humanity either wins this war or ceases to exist.
I would also argue that Kessel has to a certain extent hoisted himself on his own petard. By arguing that morality is actions and intentions, the Formic race does not get a pass on the war by arguing it was a mistake. Mistake or not, the Formic actions threaten to exterminate humanity. The morality of (human) self-defense means that whatever Ender does to end the war, including killing the Formic race, is acceptable.
One can (and I will) argue that humanity should have done more to resolve the war without genocide; however that was not Ender's responsibility, nor was he given the tool-set to even attempt such a resolution. (If you send a guy out with a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.) So, yes, under the very artificial environment of the book, Ender is an "innocent killer." It took a lot of gyrations for OSC to set up the world to make this so, and Kessel correctly points out those gyrations, but OSC ends up in the right place.
Having read this long but interesting commentary on Ender's Game (found via this thread), I see that in the novel, Ender wins by essentially deploying a nuclear device, which doesn't seem to involve sacrificing the human fleet.
But there's an interesting line in the long commentary to the effect of "if I [John Kessel, the author] had had access to a nuclear weapon in 7th grade my school would have ended up under a mushroom cloud." Kessel then ties that idea, common in schoolkids, that the world is against them into why Ender's Game is so popular and uses it to reject the "7th grade morality" of the book. Specifically, Kessel rejects the idea that only the intentions of the person matter when determining morality.
I'll take a different tack. What OSC has created in Ender Wiggins is a more articulate version of the kid that takes a gun to school and shoots the place up. The same "me vs. the cold cruel world" mindset of the school shooter is baked into Ender. In OSC's defense, the world really is against Ender, and also in OSC's defense, humanity either wins this war or ceases to exist.
I would also argue that Kessel has to a certain extent hoisted himself on his own petard. By arguing that morality is actions and intentions, the Formic race does not get a pass on the war by arguing it was a mistake. Mistake or not, the Formic actions threaten to exterminate humanity. The morality of (human) self-defense means that whatever Ender does to end the war, including killing the Formic race, is acceptable.
One can (and I will) argue that humanity should have done more to resolve the war without genocide; however that was not Ender's responsibility, nor was he given the tool-set to even attempt such a resolution. (If you send a guy out with a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.) So, yes, under the very artificial environment of the book, Ender is an "innocent killer." It took a lot of gyrations for OSC to set up the world to make this so, and Kessel correctly points out those gyrations, but OSC ends up in the right place.
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Date: 2013-11-08 12:17 am (UTC)http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/fall2013/features/up-in-arms.html
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Date: 2013-11-08 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-09 01:12 pm (UTC)On the other hand, Ender does kill two humans in hand-to-hand combat.
I just got to the part where Ender is going off to be speaker for the dead.
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Date: 2013-11-09 02:44 am (UTC)If you send a guy out with a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.
I'm sure I've heard some version of that before, but that strikes me as a very shrewd comment. [Yes, pun intentional.]
I believe it's generally used in commentary on Sparta, and on most other instances where military prowess does not translate to good government, which requires more subtle approaches. [They do govern best who govern least, or as Henry V said, (more or less), the gentler hand is the surer winner.)