Ender's Game: A Brief Depiction
I.Setting:
Staged in mainly four places. Ender Wiggins childhood town, where he is monitored as a prospective third. He is sent to Battle School, which is a satellite of the earth. Then he ends up on Eros where he attends command school and eventually defeats the buggers. He spends the rest of his days with Valentine on the first human colonization, approximately 50 light-years away from Earth.
The book takes place in 2190-2200 approx. The advancement of information transportation is significant, in that the ansible is able to transmit information faster than the speed of light, in fact, exactly instantaneous. The starships and fleets they have been able to advance are full on equipped for space and space tugs are similar to barges we have on rivers, and they are used to hull large amounts of materials about space. The fear of buggers is installed within the readers first glance at the book, and maintains constant until the very end when we learn that the buggers are in fact peaceful and loving creatures, unable to communicate that.
II.Protagonist:
The main character, Andrew (Ender) Wiggin is a young child who endures some of the hardest turmoil any human could undergo. He is very brilliant, cunning, paranoid, determined, and above all loving child who becomes mature and eventually saves the world. We see his brilliance from the start and through his days he has become the god-child, and messiah to all who know his name. His paranoia grows steadily throughout the book, due to his lack of trust in any figure he encounters. Any time they show any hint of compassion or any true emotion, ender assumes its all part of the game and plan to make him the best commander alive. His determination comes at us through many different wavelengths. He is at first solely determined to survive against playground bullies. It evolves into winning the battle games and soon after takes a curve and becomes determination to never play the game again. His most admirable trait though, is without fail the love he rarely but deeply shows for Valentine, his sister and partly companion through and through. He often says in the text that he is not a killer and has never meant to hurt anyone, simply to win the fight and never fight it again. He realizes his true love for the queen-bugger when he hosts her into eventually multiple buggers to start a new world of them.
III.Plot:
The first inciting moment that the main conflict of the book begins is when Ender begins his training at the Battle school. He realizes the seriousness of his potential and from then on has one, sometimes hard to spot, but always present goal; to take him beyond any limit and to become what is viewed as the best he can perform. He struggles with this as he loses trust in his mentors, such as Colonel Graff, Major Anderson, and Mazar Rackham. The peaking climax of the book is the disguised victory of the worlds (called Ender's final examination) where Ender takes his crew to the home planet of the buggers and destroys the planet with the "little doctor." The device is supremely destructive and leaves nothing behind when executed precisely. Upon the victory for earth, Ender goes through a partial mental break down and is in a coma for a few days. When he wakes, the battle on earth is over and peter becomes the Hegemon of Earth and Ender is free so to speak. He is asked to join his sister to go to the first human colonization in a bugger encampment and eventually goes with her. The story ends with Ender and Valentine many light-years away from earth, living out the rest of their days in peace. They are in resolution with themselves and with society.
IV.Catastrophe:
The main catastrophe for Ender is that he did not realize he literally annihilated an entire race. He believed that he was only playing a simulation and that nothing was actually real. He found this particularly hard, and it caused the mental breakdown and coma to commence. He believed in his soul that he was never a killer and it ended up that in fact, he was just the killer the human race needed to cure them of threat. This is ironic that Ender, the killer so adequate and complete, did not mean to do any killing; only to pass a test he believed was his final step to ending all the games he desperately wished to stop.
V.Theme:
Since one word cannot suffice, the theme is generated in a cynical yet exciting manner. Card uses his beliefs to build the novel in many directions. There is an underlying spiritual connection throughout the text that is exposed towards the end when Ender writes brief texts that become holy and sacred on Earth. He is referred to as the god-child and as the messiah. There is also the theme of the entire book is a game to Ender and he believes that everyone that makes any action is all part of the bigger plan; the plan to make Ender the ideal Commander and savior to the elder I.F. leaders. This theme leads up until the climax, exactly when Ender realizes that it wasn't a game at all, in fact, it was just the opposite. Every "training" mission and simulation he underwent was actually real time fighting, which was so important because he won every exercise. His excellence was very present in all his doings on the topic of commander. He never failed and never doubted his abilities, except when his teacher would play mind games with him and tell him he "better win this one." Card drives the idea of this cynical joke of society to the fullest and shows us his views and opinions lightly in the text. He idolizes the character Ender by placing him at the highest of ranks in the military as well as the noblest human (practically a god) alive. Overall, Card is a strong man who plays his work through his vital characters and is an excellent author in my opinion.
VI.Reader Evaluation:
Ender's Game is a mixture of Hard and Soft Science Fiction, with a light blend of utopia. I believe its those because the hard aspect comes from the harsh truths in the text about the war and constant struggle against the buggers, yet at the same time, its soft because Card shows us Ender's emotions and his relationships with his companions quite vividly. His display of the Utopian world is Ender's final resting spot at the bugger encampment, existing till the end with Valentine. I think the book overall is smashing, exciting, and everything a lover of science fiction could dream of. The precise attention to details is amazing and makes the read smooth and very entertaining. I also realized a lot of about the world and religion just by experiencing the text. There is a lot people put into faith and hope and as long as someone is there to represent and idolize one central belief, people's nerves are always put at ease. Ender is the one person everyone needs to feel complete and safe. He fulfills everyone's hope and faith and comfort. He is the ideal character and plays to Hard and Soft Science fiction entirely. Not to mention his Utopia with Valentine at the end of the text. It was a great read and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone.
