Ender’s Game
November 15th, 2021 by G.
One of our friends has a light review of Ender’s Game. Some good incisive points and you should read it.
There are two main claims I’d like to make.
- None of the other books besides Ender’s Game are canon or should be treated as such. I can give reasons for this but the assertion came first and the reasons came second. Mostly you just either get it or you don’t.
- Ender’s Game is a sympathetic book about Faustian man. Amazing capabilities married to juvenile maturity. It is a Faustian tragedy in two senses. The first sense is that it showcases the real successes but also limits of the Faustian approach. Not every concern is a discrete problem with a sociotechno solution. But Ender’s only hammer is to analyze a problem, find the areas in solution space that have been ignored because of convention, and then exploit them ruthlesslessly–so that is the hammer he uses over and over again. It is also a Faustian tragedy in that the Faustian world view tries to push to the very limits, including in the tragic form. Whereas the classical tragedy considers someone who is flawed, Faustian tragedies explore how good intentions and good actions can still cause disaster. Faustian tragedies explore how the same thing that makes the character great also leads them to their fall.
(The review is mostly right but goes a little too far trying to counter the yay total war view of Ender’s Game (and ignores real America’s own very Jacksonian character). The thing with the Faustian bargain is that you can’t unmake it. Once you see the buggers in terms of threat analysis eliminating them entirely as a threat is probably the “right” solution even if the buggers sincerely assure you it was a misunderstanding. In a real Faustian tragedy, there is no ‘if only the hero had done X, everything would have been better.’)
IAW
November 15, 2021
Since the book was written to provide a backstory for the novel OSC wanted to write – Speaker for the Dead – the logic of your point 1 points to declaring the novel itself un-canon and only the original short story canon.
I consider them separate universes. The novel is too closely tied into Speaker for the Dead to stand on its own, really, so it has to be part of a duology. (especially since it’s overly long ending only works as a set-up for the second book – it fails as and ending for a self contained tale).
However, the original short story doesn’t work as an abridged version of the novel – too many changes. To use DC Comics parlance, the short story is Earth – 1 and the novel series is Earth – 2.
The_Archduke
November 15, 2021
The Formics attempted to destroy Earth. Twice. They showed the ultimate in bad behavior. How else was Earth supposed to react? It was tragic that peace was not able to be found, but how could it have been? The two sides couldn’t really communicate.
If Ender had somehow trusted his dreams over everything he had ever known or been taught, he could have tried to stop what was happening. If Ender had tried to stop the Xenocide, the powers that be would have simply replaced him. And if he was wrong, and the Formics weren’t seeking peace, stopping the Xenocide would have doomed humanity.
Ender’s Game to me is a sad commentary on a fallen universe. We are put in incredibly suboptimal situations, not of our own making. We do the best we can with what we know (I mean, ideally). Sometimes, even our best efforts lead to tragic outcomes.
Speaker for the Dead tries to redeem Ender. Having him make the best of a horrible tragedy. I guess it succeeds, but it is boring. The sequels are worse. I actually read almost everything Orson Scott Card ever wrote when I was a teenager, hoping to find something close to the brilliance of Ender’s Game. I think the parallel novels (Ender’s Shadow et al.) are the only thing that comes close.
JRL in AZ
November 16, 2021
I loved Ender’s Game. I am too much of a philistine to have thought about how it works as commentary. I just thought it was an amazing story, as was Speaker for the Dead. And Ender’s Shadow was great too. And I enjoyed all the lesser Enderverse books, because they are still better than most of what else I could find to read.
[]
November 17, 2021
these are the actions of Faustian Man but not of Faustian Mankind, the two are always in conflict because faust is fractal
Andrew M.
November 20, 2021
I’m puzzled by the reviewers assertion that Ender never turns an enemy into a friend. He wins over many people that initially oppose him.