Ender's Game is an Understated Story of Uncertainty(sam-koblenski.blogspot.com)

40 pointsby koblenskivor 13 Jahren55 comments

sam-koblenski.blogspot.com

Ender's Game is an Understated Story of Uncertainty

http://sam-koblenski.blogspot.com/2013/10/enders-game-is-understated-story-of.html

6 comments

telvor 13 Jahren

But boy, is it refreshing to get away from all of that telling, telling, telling for a while.

I often find telling comes about when there is no ground truth or confidence in a field. The author must advise because there's no certainty that if they just showed you what they knew you would arrive in the same place as they.

Mathematics does a lot of telling too, but the best books don't need to as much. They just present things and let you fill in the missing details. It's almost-but-not-quite the confidence of fiction, where a good author shows and doesn't tell because the things they're trying to share are just too large to be simply explained.

I've also found the best CS books don't have to tell. I was recently reading the Reasoned Schemer and I immediately came to love the style they wrote it in. The author and the "reader" are just exploring something together at whatever rate makes sense. It's one of the few CS books I'd want to read over again.

fractallytevor 13 Jahren

This is the 'Programmed Learning' style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_learning). (It's what led me to 'The Little Lisper', in the same series as 'The Reasoned Schemer').

Another excellent example is Engineering Mathematics, by Ken Stroud (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Stroud). I used this at college, and have always loved the style: short 'frames' of explanation and examples, with questions leading onto the next frame, building confidence and skill with each bite-sized step.

telvor 13 Jahren

Ooh, thanks for the link! I'm interested in trying to write a bit in that style so it'll be nice to see a few more sources.

koblenskivor 13 Jahren

Thanks for the tip on the Reasoned Schemer. It was on my book list, so I'll have to bump it up to the top. Sounds like I'll enjoy it.

lnanek2vor 13 Jahren

Orson Scott Card could do a lot of telling if he wanted. He's actually pretty fiercely conservative and anti-gay, for example. That said, I've read the books, really enjoyed them, and wouldn't have realized if I didn't know. It's pretty amazing how he keeps it out of the books and doesn't just write tea party rantings constantly or something. Telling people isn't a good way to convince them anyway, I suppose.

telvor 13 Jahren

Yeah. I focused on a quote that seemed to be more about reading than Ender's Game in particular. I remember reading it when I was young and being so influenced by it... and then slowly rejecting all of the things I thought I had learned from it as I grew up.

I'm afraid to read it again because I feel like it's likely to be a young kid's Ayn Rand—powerfully compelling in a selfish way that speaks so much to a young kid having trouble fitting in and seeking acceptance through competency.

And then I'm afraid that the nastier side that may seep through will echo a lot of the things I've learned about OSC as a person in the intervening years. He doesn't sound much like someone I respect, and while I don't believe that I must respect an author to get something from their work... I don't think it's an easy process.

fennecfoxenvor 13 Jahren

Right, so, Orson Scott Card once gave a piece of writing advice: as soon as you notice that your story is trying to give someone a moral, try to undermine it or thwart it in some way. I think that's what you're seeing here (notwithstanding the series' overarching allegory on the book of Mormon and whatever attendant lessons exist there).

Postscript:

Hey, guys, some of you need to crank up the ostentatious "I hate ender's game!" knob a little louder. Some of us still are unaware that there exist people who dislike the book! Surely your links to a blog post which polarizes the matter in the light of your favorite philosophical or political movement will change everyone's opinion and fix this. :P

anatolyvor 13 Jahren

It's nice of you to point out that, coincidentally, the people you disagree with are the ones behaving ostentatiously on this thread.

Here, let me chime in with another piece of Card's writing advice, as convincingly retold by Jo Walton:

"My C shelves begin, controversially, with Orson Scott Card, who was one of my favourite authors for a long time but whom I can no longer read. I started reading him with Hot Sleep and A Planet Called Treason in the early 80s, and I stopped in 1997, so I have read absolutely everything up to then and nothing since. I stopped reading him because he said in his book on how to write that the best way to get readers engaged was to have appealing innocent characters and torture them, and after that I kept seeing that he was doing that and it kept jerking me out of the story."

humanrebarvor 13 Jahren

Another word for jerking around the audience (readers) though manipulating characters is drama. We still watch Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and Game of Thrones, right?

johnchristophervor 13 Jahren

After reading that slate article about how the writers brain-stormed the ending to fit their audience and get the "best" emotions out of them instead of following up on characters' development I decided not to watch any tv shows for a while.

edit: I thought that breaking bad was awesome but reading it being reduced as "drama" make me realize it was mainly drama in specific setting :(

fennecfoxenvor 13 Jahren

I can't read him anymore because it's too obvious what the plot is going to be: a misunderstood but fundamentally holy Hero Dude goes off into the wilderness or something to found a new city where his disciples can live in peace the way God intended <tm>.

So: the Ender's Game series, the Alvin Maker series, the Homecoming series, Lovelock, Wyrms, Pastwatch, Treason, and on some level, most of the biblio-historical-fiction series.

Any major Card works I'm missing? I'll give partial credit to _Songmaster_, and maybe even _Enchanted_.

telvor 13 Jahren

That's a pretty great synopsis of what I remember about Ender's Game.

falcolasvor 13 Jahren

I have never quite understood the mythos surrounding Ender's Game. I read it as an adult, and the overarching theme that stood out to me was abuse. Abusing children in general and exposing one child in particular to more abuse because they might be a solution to an otherwise "unsolvable" problem?

It just struck me as ridiculous.

koblenskivor 13 Jahren

Yes, there was plenty of abuse going on, and the I.F. thought that abuse was necessary for survival. They never stopped to think if there was possibly another explanation for the first two wars with the buggers and the following calm. They relentlessly pursued extermination of another intelligent life-form at the hands of an innocent minor. In the end it was far from clear whether any of that was necessary, and that is where the biggest uncertainty lies.

It sucks that that was the path they chose, but I can't say that it's something humanity isn't or wouldn't be capable of.

mcguirevor 13 Jahren

"I can't say that it's something humanity isn't or wouldn't be capable of."

You can't say?

It's certainly something that humanity is, and will remain, capable of.

I just can't say that it's something humanity wouldn't choose over some other option.

amishforkfightvor 13 Jahren

I thought the abuse was part of the story. The lengths we will go to preserve ourselves, even to destroying the weakest of us in the effort. The subsequent Ender novels delve into Ender coming to grips with how he was used and what he did.

Granted it's been forever since I read them.

avalaunchvor 13 Jahren

I think it's important to note that Ender's Game was only written to provide the necessary backstory to Speaker for the Dead. With that in mind, when you take both books as one, it becomes more a story about dealing with abuse than the abuse itself.

StavrosKvor 13 Jahren

Would you suggest reading SftD right after Ender's Game? The order is very confusing.

humanrebarvor 13 Jahren

Yes. I consider it an equally good book, though it's an entirely different genre.

The books in the Ender's Shadow series came much later and are more in the same vein as Ender's Game.

avalaunchvor 13 Jahren

Definitely. Speaker is an amazing book. In my opinion, it's much better than Ender's Game but you need Ender's Game to understand it.

humanrebarvor 13 Jahren

I remember Orson Scott Card saying Ender's Game was originally written to provide structure around the idea of the battle room.

Though Ender's Game was later revised. I'm not an expert on those revisions, so it's possible there were some retcons to support Speaker for the Dead.

thedufervor 13 Jahren

The short story was written to flesh out his battle room idea. It was turned into a novel (adding the final chapter as a segue and the first couple of chapters as background) to set up Speaker.

generjvor 13 Jahren

I think the book makes the case that none of them are really children, but really adults in children's bodies (with the exception of the first boy Ender accidentally killed).

The book grapples with these issues, and Graff is brought to trial for this.

humanrebarvor 13 Jahren

When I was a kid, I enjoyed the fact that the kids in the book were not infantalized and patronized. I remember being frustrated that people in real life confused youth and inexperience with stupidity and weakness.

To some degree, I'm sure my love for Ender's Game is a result of the nostalgia of finding a story that didn't talk down to me.

generjvor 13 Jahren

Yes!

I think it's hard to fully appreciate Ender's Game as an first-time adult reader.

mcguirevor 13 Jahren

"accidentally"?

djscramvor 13 Jahren

When I first read the book, I did think it was very compelling. But, as the book seems to have become core curriculum for every course on science fiction, I've come to think of it as really overrated. There are some very good, very innovative novels out there, and yet people keep teaching this one over and over.

I've also been around a lot of science fiction writers (I went to Clarion) and learned that Orson Scott Card is kind of an ass. I know that shouldn't change my judgement of the novel itself, but I still feel much less enthusiasm for it. (the sequels also soured me on the original a bit.)

humanrebarvor 13 Jahren

As I've said in another comment, I think Ender's Game is unique in the way that it is about kids without being patronizing to young readers.

Other books may be better science fiction, but how many of them are as accessible to kids?

anatolyvor 13 Jahren

Can you explain what do you mean about other books being patronizing to young readers? In what way are they patronizing?

Sure, there're many SF books that may be too complex for many young readers, but there's also lots of classic SF that people loved as kids. Take, I dunno, Azimov's I,Robot stories or his Foundation novels. Are those patronizing to young readers?

humanrebarvor 13 Jahren

Outside of "kid befriends a misunderstood robot/alien/monster", there aren't many science fiction stories starring kids. Even within that genre, there is a reliance of the stereotype of kids being naive and good-hearted. In real life, kids can have their own brand of good critical thinking skills or even skepticism.

I guess what I mean is that in popular culture generally, kids are usually foils, adorably precocious, MacGuffins, or otherwise one-dimensional. They are usually defined by their relationships with adults and their problems are usually solved by an adult, a deus ex machina, or by magic.

Ender's Game does a great job of portraying a wide range of behaviors, character traits, and emotions within a cast of intelligent primary-school-aged kids.

ef4vor 13 Jahren

I wouldn't say they're patronizing, but they don't often portray child characters that have any complexity or agency.

That is more rare, and I think it's one reason for Ender's Game's enduring appeal to young readers.

humanrebarvor 13 Jahren

I think kids in real life tend to be treated as though they lack complexity and agency.

lmmvor 13 Jahren

Rather than just saying it's overrated, why don't you give some examples of the same kind of thing done better?

anatolyvor 13 Jahren

I agree with you that Ender's Game is really overrated. But you know what? I still think it works great to introduce someone to SF as a field, especially young people. Is there really a contradiction here?

Sujanvor 13 Jahren

> There are some very good, very innovative novels out there

Source? (Links please?)

groovy2shoesvor 13 Jahren

I'd put Dune on that list.

humanrebarvor 13 Jahren

Dune is good, but would you cover it in a sixth grade Language Arts class?

groovy2shoesvor 13 Jahren

In my experience, covering any literary work in "Language Arts" class is a good way to suffocate any interest a sixth grader might have in said work.

So no, I wouldn't.

anatolyvor 13 Jahren

Are you asking about good SF novels in general or those suitable to teach young kids?

For the former, there's so much SF better than Card's. Perhaps Gene Wolfe's _The Book of the new Sun_ cycle, with its brilliant writing and real moral complexity. Or Iain M. Banks' Culture novels.

For the latter, lots of classic SF - Azimov, Heinlein etc.

Sujanvor 13 Jahren

Sorry, I was asking for general tips (that are better than Enders'game) I can add to my reading list. I loved some of Card's novels, but always looking to expand my horizon and find new stuff.

Thanks.

[deleted]vor 13 Jahren

(1)

minikitesvor 13 Jahren

An understated story of Nazi superiority maybe:

Orson Scott Card Has Always Been an Asshat (2005): http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/5/28/22428/7034

ender and hitler: sympathy for the superman (20 years later) (2007): http://peachfront.diaryland.com/enderhitlte.html

Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality (2004): http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm

phaemonvor 13 Jahren

I don't find any of those convincing. Looks like they went looking for connections and ignored all the differences. Including a genocide in a book doesn't make it about Hitler. You might just as well say it's about the Armenian genocide, or the Native American one.

generjvor 13 Jahren

Heck, the Armenian genocide even has more textual support - Petra is Armenian.

saturdaysaintvor 13 Jahren

Granted, I read it at an older age than its intended audience, but I found EG to be tedious Objectivism-lite. There's little of what I look for in literature or life - humor, surprise, adventure, character evolution. The chosen one (a tedious sci-fi trope without a bit of invention) mostly has it all figured out from page 1, and the book turns into a painful slog as he nears the finish line laden with the all consuming importance of his task.

If only all of us had outside authorities telling us what's important and we just had to focus with laserlike intensity on those preordained goals. As it turns out, determining our own values and participating with other people with their own independent values and agendas is a pretty significant part of the journey for most of the interesting and/or great people I've read about.

I mean, it's funny that liking Ender's Game is such a nerd cliche when the paths of actual tech luminaries (Jobs and Gates) are so much more winding and free-spirited (and therefore interesting to me at least).

EliRiversvor 13 Jahren

Everyone reads something different from it. When I read it, it seemed to me that Ender spent a lot of time hating the path laid out for him, often able to see what was coming but unable to do anything to stop it, and his issues with it come close to rendering him a catatonic mess.

humanrebarvor 13 Jahren

I think you underestimate how much kids really are set on tracks with preordained goals. Things don't really open up unless you are born into a very well off family (like Gates, by the way) or until you finish school.

mcguirevor 13 Jahren

Thanks for posting those links!

While I do think the Hitler-Ender link is a bit too far to stretch, the Kessel essay does articulate some of the discomfort I had about Ender's Game. When I read Card's quote,

“The humans in Ender’s Game never imagined that they were obliterating another species; rather they thought they were destroying an invading species’ ability to make war. Genocide was the result of not understanding the effect on the buggers of the death of the hive queen.”

all I could think of was the careful set-up of how Ender didn't know he'd killed Stilson and Bonzo.

slm_HNvor 13 Jahren

This is why Hacker News should stick to Hacker News.

It's ridiculous to think Ender's Game has anything to do with "Nazi superiority", whatever that is.

I read the book as a kid and liked it immensely. As an adult I discovered that Orson Scott Card is a Mormon and that a lot of people just have blind ignorant hatred of Mormons. This was a sad discovery, but it did have the benefit of allowing me to dismiss their diatribes.

eropplevor 13 Jahren

You would be hard-pressed to find a serious contingent of people who dislike Card because he's a Mormon and not because he's a homophobic authoritarian and more than a little bit of a jerk.

epi8vor 13 Jahren

I dislike him because of his stated, explicit bias against LGBT folk, and his frequent rants about the "gay agenda". True, I think his Mormonism motivates these things, but many if not most Mormons feel differently (I have no idea the exact statistics), and were he still Mormon and not a homophobic bigot, then I wouldn't have a problem with him.

I also liked Ender's Game as a kid. I like it now. I just think the author is a jackass.

generjvor 13 Jahren

I'm Mormon, and OSC isn't representative, especially of younger generations. As Christians we should be welcoming to everyone, and I have a very hard time reconciling OSC's statements to his professed beliefs.

In fact, we consistently have had guidance from Church leaders about being welcoming and kind to everyone, and even some rather pointed reminders about following that guidance in regards to LGBT. You'd be hard pressed to find statistics, especially any that had a representative poll outside of Utah.

Of course, he is crazy in lots of other ways - read any of his political articles. He seems to revel in stating things in insensitive ways, and then likes to play the martyr afterwards.

Nonetheless, his fiction is almost always excellent, so I avidly read him.

jdbernardvor 13 Jahren

I'm sorry. It is very difficult for me to take you seriously when you immediately compare someone to Hitler. The discussion has barely started and Godwin's Law has already been proved true.

Still, I figured I would at least read through the articles you listed, but they lost me pretty quick too. From the article by Kessel:

    The novel repeatedly tells us that Ender is morally spotless; though he ultimately takes on guilt for the extermination of the alien buggers, his assuming this guilt is a gratuitous act. [...] In this Card argues that the morality of an act is based solely on the intentions of the person acting.

Already it seems the author of the article has read a different book than the Ender's Game I read. Ender is not "excused" from the guilt of his actions because his intentions were good, he is excused because he did not know that the war he was fighting was real-life. He was told, and had every reason to believe that they were exercises, a game. His teachers spent a lot of effort to maintain this deception because they understood that if Ender knew it was real he would not kill like they wanted him to. By the author's logic we are all guilty of murder when we play violent video games.

The very next reference to an actual scene from the book is wrong again:

    On the very first page of the novel an adult lies to Ender about something that is going to hurt him:  the doctor removing the surgically implanted monitor that Ender has worn while being evaluated by the IE training agency swears that the removal “won’t hurt a bit.”4  But in the event it is excruciating.

The author implies that the adult purposefully lies to Ender and knowingly inflict pain beyond what is normal for a doctor's visit. First: children learn quickly that when adults say "This isn't going to hurt a bit" they are usually lying, as it will hurt a bit. So this white lie is a very relate-able experience for children, not "relentless, undeserved torment" as the author states one sentence before. The doctor certainly did not expect it to be severe pain:

    "It's designed to be removed. Without infection, without damage. But there'll be some tickling, and some people say they have a feeling of something missing. You'll keep looking around for something. Something you were looking for, but you can't find it, and you can't remember what it was. So I'll tell you. It's the monitor you're looking for, and it isn't there. In a few days that feeling will pass."

When Ender experience severe pain as a result, the doctor is almost as surprised as Ender. He is unprepared for the violence of Ender's pain, is obviously upset at how much pain Ender has endured, and is upset with himself about it:

    The doctor was trembling; his voice shook as he spoke. "They leave these things in the kids for three years, what do they expect? We could have switched him off, do you realize that? We could have unplugged his brain for all time. [...] Could have unplugged him forever. I don't have the brains of a bugger."

But notice that he does not express any misgivings about it until after Ender has his violent reaction. Surely he has never seen this reaction before or he would have been more prepared to deal with it.

Already the author's arguments are resting on very shaky readings of the source text, but I'll keep going a little further.

His next several paragraphs focus on further examples of how Card subjects Ender to "relentless, undeserved torment" with the implication that this is done simply to make the reader sympathetic to Ender. Here are some excerpts of his examples:

    When Ender is not being lied to by authorities, he is being bullied. [...]

From where I sit, this is is very common in schools. Kids are lied to by authority figures and bullies in schools act with impunity regularly. Sure, this is making Ender out to be a sympathetic character for many kids, but not because he is being subjected to extreme, unusual torture, but because he is facing things they face everyday in real life.

    The family offers no haven from assault. [...]

Again, this form of "relentless, undeserved torment" is sadly not atypical.

    Yet, for reasons that are never made clear, Ender never tells his parents; he learns early to hide his fear and hurt. [...]

Again not atypical.

    One might ask where Ender’s parents or teachers are when Ender is physically assaulted.  This question reveals a second mechanism Card uses to generate sympathy:  in Ender’s Game, adults or authority are never there to protect.

Again, not atypical. In fact, this is a key point in the book. Ender is being manipulated to believe he will always have to solve his own problems. I find it hard to believe Card is sneakily trying to manipulate the reader into feeling sympathetic for Ender when he tells the reader about this directly in the book.

The author of the article seems to be trying to make the point that Ender was morally culpable for his actions regardless of his intention of the circumstances. At this point I think he is trying to set the groundwork for the argument that Card is purposefully manipulating the reader into being so sympathetic to Ender as a character that we are willing to forgive him for his crimes. So far the author's biased treatment of the source has biased me against his article to such a degree that I do not know if I can continue reading with an open mind. His argument as I understand it so far seems to have trivial flaws. Are we always responsible for the results of our actions, even when we are purposefully manipulated into circumstances where we have been deceived about what the outcome will be?

minikitesvor 13 Jahren

I appreciate your detailed and good faith reply, which is more than most of the replies to my comment have been.

I think you may have stopped reading right before the main point of the Kessel article:

---------

Over and against these examples of “good” people whose cruelty is justified, even an act of friendship toward its objects, we have the “bad” people whose mistreatment of others, unlike that of Graff and Ender, springs from bad motives: Peter, Stilson, Bernard, Bonzo. We are never invited to wonder whether (and it is hard to imagine that) they might have a good motive for any of their actions. Bernard is a sadist from word one. Stilson is a bully. Peter is a psychopath. Bonzo is consumed by jealousy and hatred.

Card thus labors long and hard in Ender’s Game to create a situation where we are not allowed to judge any of his defined-as-good characters’ morality by their actions. The same destructive act that would condemn a bad person, when performed by a good person, does not implicate the actor, and in fact may be read as a sign of that person’s virtue.

The doctrine that the morality of an action is solely determined by the actor’s motive rests on a significant assumption: that the good always know what their motives are, and are never moved to do things for selfish reasons while yet thinking themselves moved by virtue. Ender has perfect knowledge of his own motives and the motives of others. Ender never suspects himself of doing other than what he thinks himself to be doing, and indeed, in Speaker for the Dead he makes a career of delivering faultless moral judgments of other people.

---------

As I understand the argument, Ender gets a pass and the "evil" characters don't.

Re: the Hitler comparison, I don't know enough about Hitler or Ender's Game to make a detailed response, but why would that many parallels exist, to the detail and degree that they do if it was unintentional? I would copy and paste the examples, but it would pretty much be the entire Radford article.

jdbernardvor 13 Jahren

For the sake of discussion I read through Kessel's article and made it through most of Radford's. Both articles really feel to me like they are not approaching the book from a neutral perspective. I get the very strong feeling that they have an agenda when the approach the material, causing them to interpret the work with a very specific bias. This then leads to distortions of the text's meaning similar to the ones I listed from the Kessel article and projections of the article authors' desired outcome onto the book, forcing conclusions I don't think the text supports.

They are trying to create a narrative about Card's morality using his books to ferret out his true colors. I'm not interested in that. Card is a jerk, fine. I get that. I agree even. I don't particularly care. I am more interested in evaluating his books and characters on their own merits. Despite being an insufferable heel in real life, I think Card has a very good grasp of humanity and he is able to write characters and situations that are true to life in many ways. In particular, I think Ender's Game illustrates many characters whose morality and motivations are complex in many of the same ways that real people are complex. Ender and company struggle with exaggerated versions of the same problems we struggle with. I am not interested in the book as primary source for moral teaching, and I do not think it was intended to be read that way. Kessel and Radford seem determined, however, to draw a host of moral conclusions about Card and his worldview from the book. I don't see the value in this.

Card is a good storyteller, and in staying true to the story I think it forces Card to distance his own morals from that of his characters. Specifically, there are things Card himself has said about Ender and other characters in the book that I do not think are true. Kessel points out some of these inconsistencies between the text of Ender's game and what Card has said about them later, but in his article Kessel is guilty of the same thing: re-imaging the text and Ender himself in such a way that is convenient to his argument, not as he was written (as I pointed out in brief with my previous comment).

These authors have put a good deal of thought into their works, and while I feel like I understand the essence of their arguments, I am not going to be able to construct a fair treatment of their arguments without a similar investment of time on my side to articulate my thoughts with the same depth and specificity as theirs. I will try to address them in brief, but my points here will not be as fleshed as theirs because I do not have that kind of time presently.

It is also hard to pull out Kessel's central point from the article, because he covers a lot of ground. A more fair treatment would be to try identify the main thoughts in the article, organize them into a cogent argument and address each in turn, but again I am not going to invest that kind of time into this. This is the kind of work that is more profitable in a discussion format.

At the beginning of the article Kessel states his goal:

----

The purpose of this paper is to examine the methods Card uses to construct this story of a guiltless genocide, to point out some contradictions inherent in this scenario, and to raise questions about the intention-based morality advocated by Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead.

----

You will notice he says the paper is to examine and question. From the tone of the article the author has strong conclusions he has drawn, or at least a point he is trying to make, but he never really articulates his conclusions. It is hard to find a place where Kessel states simply what he is arguing. The first section of the essay is predominantly filled with examples of how Card writes Ender in a very sympathetic light as contrasted with his adversaries. As best I can tell, Kessel is trying to establish that Card is using Ender as the poster-boy or prime example of the "intention-based morality" Card advocates. I do not think Kessel is really questioning Ender's character but rather he is questioning why Card spent so much time creating the situations and motivations that establish Ender as an guiltless killer.

As I touched on briefly in the previous comment, I do not agree with Kessel's treatment of the material. Kessel seems willing to bend the narrative of the book in order to push his point about Card's motivations. There is no doubt that Card is writing Ender as a sympathetic character. But the story of Ender is not the story of a cruel, fundamentally violent person who gets off scot-free over and over again because of good intentions. The story of Ender is the story of a person with very dangerous potential who is repeatedly backed into a corner where they are forced to realize their violent ability. To some extent this is all of us. Ender is violent despite his best intentions. He is innocent because his options were reduced to the point where kill or be killed where the only rational choices.

Kessel seems bent on placing the blame on Ender because Ender was the one who killed, but Ender killed when he had no choice. The blame belongs with those who forced him into situations where he had to kill, who deceived him into treating life-and-death decisions as a game (the Xenocide itself). In the final battle Ender only chooses the course he does because it is a game with no real consequences.

Kessel is astonished that Card sees Ender as the victim in so many situations:

----

By “The person being subjected to the torture,” Card is not referring here to Stilson, Bonzo, or the buggers, who may well be sacrificed, but whose sacrifices are certainly not “voluntary.” Their deaths are not the voluntary sacrifices that draw Card’s concern. [...] All the force of such passages is on the price paid by the destroyer, not on the price paid by the destroyed.

----

The implication is that Stilson, Bonzo, and the buggers are the victims, and not Ender. Ender is the destroyer according to Kessel. But let's look at these situations:

Stilson bullies Ender relentlessly. Ender has an understandable fear of ongoing and serious injury from Stilson once the monitor is removed. He waits for authority to act. Ender does not take matters into his own hands until it is obvious that no one else is going to step in and help him. When he does take action it is decisive. He does not intend to kill Stilson but unknowingly he does. Who's responsibility is this? Ender is too young to understand that he has killed Stilson. The responsibility lies with the teachers and Graff who orchestrated this situation and allowed it to progress to the point that it did. In my opinion both Stilson and Ender are victims here. This is an exaggeration of real life. How many stories have you read about kids who were bullied, the administration turned a blind eye until a fight broke out and then suspended the kid for fighting back?

Bonzo is an even more clear case. How can you argue that Bonzo is the victim in any sense? Ender triumphs, but he is obviously a victim here. Blame rests squarely on Bonzo's own shoulders, and again on the shoulders of the teachers who were purposefully negligent.

With the buggers, they attacked first. It is entirely reasonable for humanity to defend itself. This war was fundamentally one of misunderstanding, with humanity and the buggers both seeing the other as savage, but the buggers made the first aggressive move. The buggers ultimately realized their mistake, but were unable to communicate their desire for peace to the humans. I would argue that without knowing their minds the humans were justified in adopting a "kill them before they kill us" approach. They already had first hand proof of the buggers' deadly intent. You could argue this still does not justify xenocide, and I would agree, but one could argue convincingly that the humans are justified. Ender is removed even from this because he did not know they were attacking the buggers. He did not know his training was actually the real war. Ender took the actions he did thinking it was not real. We do this all the time when we play video games. We purposefully kill people, sometimes innocent people. Sometimes we purposefully do things we would say is evil in a video game because we know it is not real. We would never do those in real life. Ender never intended to commit xenocide.

Like I said, I don't think Kessel is really intending to attack Ender's morality. That's not really a tenable position because Card wrote the world he lives in. Card as the author can (and has) written it in such a way that Ender can not reasonably be held responsible for the outcomes of his actions. I think Kessel (and Radford) are more concerned with why Card wrote such a story, but they contort the story itself to make their point.

I really should take the time to go through in more depth, because there is so much in Kessel's article that I have some comment on (some I agree with). It is hard in a summary like this to avoid conflating them. But in essence, Kessel rejects the morality of Ender in context because he wants to make a point about Card's morality. Ultimately I think he and Radford are arguing that the book offers a false view of morality and advances a harmful view of innocence, vindicating a cruel murderer. I reject that interpretation of the books, asserting that many of their comments are not true with respect to the actual text of the book. I believe the book paints an accurate portrayal of many human motivations, and I assert that Ender within the context of his circumstances--which I admit are fictional--made moral choices and was justified in his actions. Particularly, I would argue that you have to ignore major plot points in the book and twist the characters beyond recognition to make the comparison between Ender and Hitler, or the buggers and the Jews.