Does anyone remember Ender's Game? I've spent so many years on social media and have not seen a single thing about it. The movie for it came out in 2013. I watched it, but it wasn't until a year or so ago that I even knew it was based on a book. And that the book was a part of a series. It's because of a song that I remembered the movie at all.
Take me home
In my dream you said that you loved me
I am your perfect
Shoutout to the Genius annotator that recognized the reference. I never would have known otherwise.
But, the last time I listened to that song was in January! I began reading the series only last month! (October 2022). So you have to understand that this feeling of curiosity towards Ender's Game was a flickering flame that suddenly exploded. I don't know why. I was feeling nostalgic because it was around the time of my birthday, maybe.
Ender's Game was written to be a sort of prequel. Orson Scott Card, the author, did not intend for "background information" to be the popular one. Or at least that's what I read in a GoodReads review.
This will mostly be a summarization of the novel. Whatever opinion I had on it was overshadowed by the opinion I have on the entire series. This isn't a bad thing. What I mean is that this novel is so good, I just want to write about the things I like about it. And that's the entire story, sooo...
It's a story set in the future, where Earth has nearly been wiped out by space creatures called the buggers. It has been peaceful for awhile, which leaves every person in fear of their return, whenever it will be. Battle School is created to find and train the child who will be the next Mazer Rackham, the commander who saved Earth from total destruction. There won't be another bugger invasion, like before. The next time they fought, it will be humans who initiated it.
The government only allows two children. Any children born after that are shunned for being an unnecessary mouth to feed. Ender is that child: a Third. He is born because his siblings were close to being perfect, to being the next Mazer Rackham, and so the government requested a Third. The first was too violent and the second was too mild, so Ender is the one who would be the perfect mix of the two.
(Which is so crazy, btw? The parents are never plot relevant again, but you'd think the people who birthed three genius children would also have some capacity to do something. After saying goodbye to Ender, the only relevance they have is to serve as a way for their children to post on the internet. Lmao.)
Besides that, there is so much intrigue within the book. We're looking through the eyes of Ender, who has no idea what's going on, yet is still smart enough to overcome any test the Battle School gives him. But there are still things that escape him. While we have become sort of familiar with this could be Earth through Ender's reactions, it's things like the Fantasy Game that show that there are mysteries still unsolved.
The Fantasy Game is just... wow. At first we're led to believe that the game is fucked up on purpose. And it's supposed to be, it's designed to identify which kids are on the verge of breaking. But it was never supposed to be as piercing and intrusive as Ender discovers it to be. It's afterwards everything within the game transpires that we find out how unsettling it really is. What it was doing and showing Ender, was never programmed. Things like that just don't happen, not even in this future.
Another fascinating aspect of the book is its tender moments. They are so few and far in between, because Ender is in an environment that is degrading to both his body and mind, that they become so special.
On impulse Ender hugged him, tight, almost as if he were Valentine. He even thought of Valentine then and wanted to go home. "I don't want to go," he said.
Alai hugged him back. "I understand them, Ender. You are the best of us. Maybe they're in a hurry to teach you everything."
"They don't want to teach me everything," Ender said. "I wanted to learn what it was like to have a friend."
Alai nodded soberly. "Always my friend, always the best of my friends," he said. Then he grinned. "Go slice up the buggers."
"Yeah." Ender smiled back.
Alai suddenly kissed Ender on the cheek and whispered in his ear. "Salaam." Then, red faced, he turned away and walked to his own bed at the back of the barracks. Ender guessed that the kiss and the word were somehow forbidden. A suppressed religion, perhaps. Or maybe the word had some private and powerful meaning for Alai alone. Whatever it meant to Alai, Ender knew that it was sacred; that he had uncovered himself for Ender, as once Ender's mother had done when he was very young, before they put the monitor in his neck, and she had put her hands on his head when she thought he was asleep, and prayed over him. Ender had never spoken of that to anyone, not even to Mother, but had kept it as a memory of holiness, of how his mother loved him when she thought that no one, not even he, could see or hear. That was what Alai had given him: a gift so sacred that even Ender could not be allowed to understand what it meant.
After such a thing nothing could be said. Alai reached his bed and turned around to see Ender. Their eyes held for only a moment, locked in understanding. Then Ender left.
This is a scene that has continued to stick with me, even after moving on to the rest of the series. It is a heartaching moment. It's the last time for a few years that he'll ever experience such kindness again.
The call back to this scene only makes it hurt more.
"Salaam, Alai."
"Alas, it is not to be."
"What isn't?"
"Peace. It's what salaam means. Peace be unto you."
The words brought forth an echo from Ender's memory. His mother's voice reading to him softly, when he was very young. Think not that I came to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword.
[...]
Ender turned around.
Alai was already gone. He felt like part of himself had been taken away, an inward prop that was holding up his courage and confidence. With Alai, to a degree impossible even with Shen, Ender had come to feel a unity so strong that the word we came to his lips much more easily than I.
Of course, Ender makes it. Of course, he is the next Mazer Rackham. What Alai said was true, peace was never meant for Ender.
"I killed them all, didn't I?" Ender asked.
"All who?" asked Graff. "The buggers? That was the idea."
Mazer leaned in close. "That's what the war was for."
"All their queens. So I killed all their children, all of everything."
"They decided that when they attacked us. It wasn't your fault. It's what had to happen."
Ender grabbed Mazer's uniform and hung onto it, pulling him down so they were face to face. "I didn't want to kill them all. I didn't want to kill anybody! I'm not a killer! You didn't want me, you bastards, you wanted Peter, but you made me do it, you tricked me into it!" He was crying. He was out of control.
"Of course we tricked you into it. That's the whole point," said Graff.
The references that the song make come entirely from the ending point of the novel. I love how that's how it all worked out, I mean at this point I wasn't even reading only to find the references first-hand, but it was a full circle moment for me.
When I first began to reminisce on the movie I remembered how emotional the ending was.
Ender never wanted to be a killer, much less a person to wipe out the only other species with similar intelluctual capability (who also came from space!). I remember the ending to have him crying, both out of shame, and then of relief. He didn't wipe out all of the buggers. Safe inside its cocoon, Ender finds the egg that holds a Hive Queen, who had the capability of bringing back the buggers from extinction.
Ender was always tormented by the thought of becoming his violent brother. It was killing that first got him admitted into Battle School, and he was forced again in Battle School.
"They're bound to ice him. Troublemaker. Him and his stinking honor."
Then, to Dink's surprise, Ender began to cry. Lying on his back, still soaking wet with sweat and water, he gasped his sobs, tears seeping out of his closed eyelids and disappearing in the water on his face.
"Are you all right?"
"I didn't want to hurt him!" Ender cried. "Why didn't he just leave me alone!"
It's a great moment of forgiveness from the Hive Queen, for her to recognize that Ender did not know that he was killing them. To trust him to find a safe place for the buggers to be reborn is the redemption Ender always wanted, and deserved.
it's crazy that i wrote all that. anyways
the first book is AMAZING and such a blast to read. the rest of the series is... okay (i'm stopped at Children of the Mind). if you're expecting the latter books to have the same sorta vibe as the first, they don't. those little moments where Ender remembers his experience with religion and where he interacts with other people become the basis for the series
there's a lot lot more talking and a lot of observing and it is somewhat interesting! but there's like a whole lot, you know, and if that's not your thing just stick to the first one. you're better off anyway
i almost regret writing this almost a year after i finished Xenocide because i did have some parts that i enjoyed, but i can't remember anymore. but ummmmmmm yeah um u
i said i didn't remember but i believe i was just saying that as an excuse. of course i remember... though, i don't remember the specifics so this will all be very general
the greatest parts of the novels are the little "conversations" at the beginning of each chapter. i remember Ender's Game having Colonel Graff's perspective, and another having the dialogue between the Hive Queen and the Fathertrees, both being pretty good.
i really, really love how Speaker for the Dead opens. there's a few(?) thousand years gap between Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. you don't know what to expect from civilization in the future. i believe the first new name that's revealed to us is of a Perquenino - but we're under the assumption that it's yet another human... until we get a description their features!
it also has a fairytale-like feeling as it takes us through the story of Novinha... overall just a beautiful way to introduce us to humans, thousands of years in the future
there's a lot more good aspects that i can remember, like Peter, the storyline of Path (i can still vividly remember the imagery of Si Wang-mu's test), and the development of like idk, everything. fun stories that i may return to someday