William Nolan
Mrs. Proctor
Honors English 2
8 May 2016
Intention-Based Blame: Genocide Is Child’s Play Intentions matter, but is the intent the only factor in determining the morality of an action and the means getting there? Stemming from this question, the biggest issue in Ender’s Game that is still the most controversial, still remains unresolved. Should Ender, the protagonist, be held responsible for the buggers’ deaths? This theme is the basis of Card’s belief of intention-based philosophy. In Ender’s Game and his sequels, he argues that the morality of an act is based solely on the motive of the person acting. The result is a character who can commit genocide and still remain innocent. Despite knowing the incredible atrocities Ender
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The character that Ender emulates the most is Christ. The multiple religious references make the parallels obvious. In the first edition of Ender’s Game, Graff describes himself and Anderson as “the ones who are driving in the nails" (First Edition 106). When Ender’s friend Alai explains that his hello to Ender, “salaam,” is Islamic for “peace be unto him”, an image immediately leaps into Ender’s mind. He is reminded of his mother praying over his body as a child. That in turn evoked an image of revenge against his personal tormentor and brother, Peter (Card 87). Ender is reminded of, not of the message of Christian peace, but of righteous war and death. This vengeful mental picture is a consequence of Peter's identity in Ender and casts aspersions on his intent. In an essay entitled “Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman,” Elaine Radford, using these vengeful images and other clues, claims that Orson Scott Card wrote Ender as metaphor to Hitler. Both Ender and Hitler were the third child of their family. Both suffer abuse by adults. Both attempted genocide (Radford 2). In a response to that essay, Orson Scott Card said in an …show more content…
By rising to power, hitler knew exactly what he was doing. By being manipulated by adults, Ender had no idea what he was doing. In a sense, the adults were more like Hitler, Stalin, and all other mass murderers than Ender was. Even in the trial of negligent homicide, Colonel Graff justified his abuse of Ender with the Nuremberg Defense and the exact same statement the Nazis used to justify their actions. Graff said he did “what [he] believed was necessary for the preservation of the human race” (Card 235). The I.F. did take control with extreme parallels to the Nazi takeover. But the colonel is not a complete Hitler figure. While Hitler’s attack in the Jews was completely unprovoked, the buggers had attacked Earth two earlier times, nearly destroying humanity. The situation this resembles the most is a violent end to the Cold war. Card wrote Ender’’s Game in ???? () in the middle of the Cold war. In Ender’s position, the war with the buggers is one that must end with the complete and utter destruction of one side the humans or the buggers. That outcome is exactly how a nuclear war between the US and the USSR would have ended with the total destruction of one side. Even the fact that Battle School is in space and how the Russians want to shoot it down represent the Soviet’s frustration at ultimately losing the space race. The fact that Orson Scott Card treats the
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Show MoreThe book ender's game has a lot of possible themes but the one that is the most truthful is “human nature is to destroy what we don’t know”. As humans when our instinct is to destroy anything that is different from us, we are so scared of anyone else having more power than we will kill anything in our path. The theme in ender's game is human nature is to destroy that which we do not understand and we know that because of what the bible says, the need to kill the buggers and the whole training the launchies go through. The bible has a lot of verses that support the theme “human nature is to destroy what we don’t know.
In Orson Scott Card’s book Ender’s Game, Ender is continually set up against impossible odds by the International Fleet, which is part of a plan to train Ender to fight in the Third Invasion and end the bugger wars forever. Ender’s trials are portrayed more convincingly in the book, as the book shows him struggling with the expectations placed upon him more so than in the movie. An important theme in Ender’s Game is that Ender is continually kept in the dark about the events happening around him. This theme is prevalent throughout the book, and sets the stage for the book’s climax, the Third Invasion.
Scott Macarthy Mr. Werley English III 22 September 2014 The Destruction of Ender A utopia is supposed to be a perfect world, yet there are rarely any true utopias. Ender’s Game begins with a utopic society, where the government pits Earth against the nasty and evil buggers. Throughout Ender 's Game, written by Orson Scott Card, the reader follows the main protagonist, Ender, from his journey as a young boy on Earth to the hopes of being the next great commander in the fight against the buggers.
Graff pushes Ender to his limit a lot and Ender gets tired of getting manipulated sometimes and causes him to get angry: “Dink was right, they were the enemy, they loved nothing and cared for nothing and he was not going to do what they wanted, he was damn well not going to do anything for them, He had only one memory that was safe, one good thing, and those bastards had plowed it into him with the rest of the manure-”( 151-152). At the Battle School evil thrives in the environment and people’s villainous side comes out. In the novel, other settings have an evil environment too. While Ender has to deal with problems in the Battle School in space, Ender’s family deals with the war that's bound to come on Earth. War remains a threat throughout most of the novel on Earth.
The whole time Ender had not been aware he had killed them, and the leaders were manipulating him for his own sake. They explain that they didn’t tell him that he actually killed both Bonzo and Stilson; so that he wouldn’t think of himself as a killer. Throughout the book Ender repeats that he doesn’t want to hurt anyone and doesn’t like that he has to be violent in order to be safe. If Ender would’ve found out, it would destroy his motivation and drive to want to be the best he can be. All in all, Ender is an overall better person because of the fact he didn’t know the
In the book “Ender’s Game,” Ender, the book’s protagonist is the hero of the story. Many of the characters in and out of the book and at times even Ender himself had viewed him as a villain. This is due to the fact that Ender on occasion displayed merciless aggression towards others, despite good intentions. Many of the characters in the book felt inferior to Ender because he was constantly getting singled out because of his mental acuity. Ender was a hero because he always acted in self defense, and always did more good than bad.
And Ender hated himself.” () Virtually identical to the emotional consequence Ender formerly suffered from Stilson, delineates his sentiments regarding Bernard; Card not developing on his idea in the slightest, keeping Ender’s own hatred of himself and the potential individual he apparently mocks
As a result, why can Card not write about someone who kills? In addition, do we now limit what authors can write
All in all, i Agree with kessel’s view. Ender is a moral person. He always thinks, he is forced to commit violence, and he feels guilt for everything that he does Ender has to kill people, he doesn’t choose to. Time after time, we see ender hurting people.
I will be focusing on the original Ender’s Game novel for my independent research project. Ender’s Game was published in 1985 and was written by Orson Scott Card. In the novel Ender’s capability to understand the aliens he is being trained to destroy makes him the ultimate warrior for the Human race. He understands these Aliens called Buggers, but even further he can empathize with them. This empathy is key to the conclusion of the novel.
In the beginning of the chapter, two unknown characters are discussing Ender’s future. “He’s too malleable. Too willing to submerge himself in someone else’s will.” “Not if the other person is his enemy.” “So what do we do?
Ender knows what has to be done in order to prevent further, possibly fatal, attacks and demonstrates that he is willing to attack on the helpless to do so. (add more?) good Chapter 2. “It was not a question of winning… here in their flat, the game would start mean, and the bugger couldn’t just go empty and quit the way buggers did in the real wars. The bugger
Ender’s Game is a 1985 science fiction novel by Orson Scott Key. Set in the future where an insectoid alien species, the Formics (or the buggers), have attacked Earth twice with devastating results for the human species, Andrew “Ender” Wiggins is humanity's last hope. A child prodigy and main character of Ender’s Game, Ender is sent to Battle School to learn how to fight and destroy the buggers. He is chosen because his characteristics are perfect to be a commander. Some traits that are very important in making Ender who he is are his calculating judgments, creativity, and compassion.
End them or end us. But heaven knows there was no other way you could’ve done it,” (Card pg.296). This shows that Mazer knew that if they had done nothing during the fight against the bugger humanity would be in danger because the buggers would’ve came back to wipe out humanity. This also shows that inaction leads to loss because Mazer said that it was, “all or nothing”, which meant that they could do everything they could and win or do nothing and lose. These quotes prove that inaction leads to loss because throughout Ender’s Game the characters like Ender and Mazer have been through battles where they know that if they don’t do anything at all
However, the majority of the battles he fights are constructed and orchestrated and controlled by the Adults. Ender lives in a military archetype which assumes humans are compliant, flexible, controllable pawns, tool to be used for the benefit of others. Ender’s insecurities,doubts and fears, as to why he is so isolated, how he is becoming more like petter, how he is an ostracized genius, all that sets him apart– make him diligent, sympathetic, preservant, resilient, flexible, and above all pliable, impressionable, malleable, qualities far more common in children. Supporting quote: “‘So what do we do now?’ asked Alai.