Ender describes the egg and the mating, the males shuddering in ecstasy and dying, dropping to the floor to shrivel. It’s a bit disgusting, like something you might see in one of those uncouth nature programs. And, having witnessed the mating, our pre-cognitive appraisal leads to the same response we have when watching the nature programs—ick! Our first experience with the formics tags them as alien and repulsive. Clearly not one of us.
But then our view of them starts to change. Instead of focusing on things insectly grotesque, we are told to imagine the queen as majestic, clothed in shimmering wings. Then we’re told she “kisses” her child, her daughter. Card then has us imagine her realization that all her children were going to die in the attack of the third wave, and that she was unable to do anything to avoid it. Notice that he prompts us to imagine her offspring as “children,” not insects.
Then Card takes this all another step further. “They did not forgive us,” the hive queen says. “We will surely die.” We imagine a mother who feels enough remorse to want forgiveness.
We respond in sympathy to others when we see (1) a basically good, deserving person (2) suffering some form of hardship. Card has led us to imagine things that not only anthropomorphize the queen and her children but also show her goodness and hardship. In the space of a few lines, I was suddenly appraising things from her point of view. Did you not feel the same change as you read?
We’re next guided to imagine the strange requirements for the hatching of the egg and a “small and fragile queen” emerging from it. And even though the hatching clearly reminds us that the hive queen is other, nothing here is grotesque. Furthermore, we are led directly into imagining the grief the queen feels at killing the humans. We know finally why the formics didn’t come in another wave—they “did not mean to murder.” They didn’t even know, couldn’t imagine, that we were thinking beings. We were bugs to them. Their final desperate cry rings in our ears: “Believe us, believe us, believe us.” Please don’t kill my last child, our last sister.
Card has led us from imagining the antecedents that trigger fear and revulsion to imagining those that completely reverse our appraisal. And we respond accordingly. By this point, I had tears in my eyes. I had sympathy for the helpless babe and the sorrowing mother as she faces death, trying to give her child a chance. I felt an anxious desire for the humans to hear their cry, which was “our” cry because I was on their side. The formics were good “people” who meant no harm, who had simply made a terrible mistake. The same one, in fact, that the humans make: Ender is as much the monster to them as they are to us. Then Ender writes his book, and the hive queen speaks with such forgiveness and magnanimity, it’s impossible not to be slightly in awe of her goodness. She is different, but she is one of the best of us.
The loss, the poignancy, the sympathy for this supposed enemy—all of that is added into the experience of the book so that it’s not just an adventure; it’s not just a story about space or how to lead; it’s not just about military games or trying to survive bullies and psychopaths who are trying to kill you. It’s also about “making us human in each other’s eyes.” And Card doesn’t just tell us that—he guides us so that it goes down into our bones, so that it’s not just an idea but is stamped in our hearts.
The Silence of Peter’s Speaking
One might think we would feel this same sympathy for Peter, whom, we are told, Ender speaks for as well. But Card does not present any of the content, and so we do not experience a change of heart like we did for the hive queen. It’s true that Valentine tells Ender at the lake in chapter thirteen that “Peter’s changed.” But the fact is that I was never led to imagine what was necessary to feel or believe it.
What was I led to imagine instead?
We start in chapter one knowing that Peter hates Ender for having the monitor longer than he did. Then in chapter two we are led through one of the most frightening scenes of the book. Peter threatens Ender into playing formics and astronauts and in short order has him on his back and begins to suffocate him. Ender thinks Peter might not mean to kill him, might simply be trying to hurt him like he has in the past, but Peter, reading his mind, tells him, “I do mean it. Whatever you think, I mean it.” Only Valentine’s quick thinking saves Ender.
There was no doubt in my mind Peter wanted to kill Ender. I’d already been primed with Stilson to see what people in this culture thought about Thirds. And even though Peter relents when he sees he can’t get away with murder at this time, he vows to kill Ender by lulling both him and Valentine into a false sense of security. My anxiety for Ender at that point was extremely high. Ender then explicitly tells us how to appraise the situation so we make no mistake. Peter may fool the adults, but “Peter was a murderer at heart, and nobody knew it but Valentine and Ender.”
What a first impression. Yes, Peter comes into Ender’s room later that night (Ender thinking maybe Peter has come to kill him) and tells Ender he’s sorry, that he loves him. But isn’t that what Peter promised to do—lull Ender into believing he won’t kill him?
We see Peter next in chapter nine. It opens with the voices of those who monitored the thoughts of Peter, telling us “he’s one of the worst human beings we’ve laid hands on.” This is the judgment of those who supposedly know Peter inside and out. We are not led to imagine anything that would contradict this appraisal, so there’s no reason to question them.
Valentine tells us that the Wiggins move to North Carolina, hoping nature will soften Peter. She says that Peter has fooled all the adults, but she knows different. Then she describes the squirrels Peter flays alive. She suspects this was a way for Peter to satisfy his need to kill, but the first words out of Peter’s mouth when he comes onstage again show us he’s as dangerous as ever. He says to Valentine, “I’ve been deciding whether to kill you or what.”
And I believe him. I feel danger every time that boy comes onstage. And why shouldn’t I? To this point, we haven’t been led to imagine anything that would lead to any other response.
Peter explains he wants her help. He doesn’t want to destroy anyone. He admits he was cruel. He says he loved both her and Ender and that it was all because “I just had to be—had to have control, do you understand that?” He tells her control is the most important thing for him. It’s his gift to see the weak points in things. And now he wants to “save mankind from self-destruction.”
But Valentine doesn’t buy it. She confronts him about killing the squirrels, saying, “You did it because you love to do it.” Peter weeps. “It’s what I’m most afraid of,” he says. “That I really am a monster. I don’t want to be a killer but I just can’t help it.” Valentine thinks while he might be telling the truth, it’s only to manipulate her. Then he asks her to be his partner in everything so she can keep him from becoming “like the bad ones.”
Here’s our chance to revise our appraisal of Peter, but he’s so full of lies and manipulation we can’t trust it. Any hopes we might have had for him are discarded a few pages later when Valentine is asked if Peter is a bad person, and she responds by saying he’s “the worst person I know.” Indeed, he’s the worst we know in the book as well.
In chapter thirteen, when we return to Valentine’s point of view, the voices at the beginning of the chapter reaffirm that Peter “has the soul of a jackal.” Furthermore, Valentine tells us that Peter still frightens her. She tells Ender he’s changed, but we’re given nothing that would help us imagine another person. Time after time after time, we are only led to imagine a psychopath.
At the end of the lake chapter, Graff and Ender discuss the fact that they can’t communicate with the formics. Graff concludes, “If the other fellow can’t tell you his story, you can never be sure he isn’t trying to kill you.” Perhaps Peter has told us his story; perhaps what he says to Valentine is an accurate reflection of his thoughts. But it’s clear we need more to trust the story is true. We need more to even understand what Peter’s need for control means. In the end, Card never gui
des us into imagining anything that would allow us to trust Peter. And so all we can conclude is that Peter has some new scheme, one that doesn’t require he murder Valentine, yet.
From start to finish, Peter triggers nothing but loathing and fear.
The Why Matters
Throughout the story, Ender fears he’ll become a monster, a murderer like Peter. But as a reader, I could not share that fear because any action someone might take is only part of what we use to appraise the morality of a situation. The other part is revealed in chapter three when Ender’s mother sarcastically asks Colonel Graff if he’d have given Ender a medal if he’d killed Stilson. Graff replies, “It isn’t what he did, Mrs. Wiggin. It’s why.”
Indeed, if there’s anything the experience of Ender’s Game teaches us, it’s that the why matters. Peter is a monster not because he does things that cause others pain but because of the why behind them. He is only motivated by a desire to control. The hive queen slaughtered great numbers of humans, but the why of her actions transforms that act from evil to tragic ignorance. In all his altercations with Stilson, Peter, Bernard, and Bonzo, Ender only fights to secure his safety. He kills two boys and wipes out a whole species, but we don’t condemn him for it because he is never acting to hurt someone else, only to defend. And so we end up rooting for him instead.
The why is a vital part of our appraisal of any situation and, therefore, has a direct effect on our response.
Although Peter can only see people as tools in his schemes, Ender is filled with a desire to be kind. In fact, in the surprising discussion with Valentine at the lake, Ender reveals to her that he doesn’t want to beat Peter. He only wants Peter to love him. Someone might read that as Stockholm syndrome, except we’ve been given Ender’s mind and heart, and there’s no evidence of that. Ultimately, Ender goes back to fight the formics to save Valentine, the one who loved him, who was his anchor, “even if she loved Peter more.”
My eyes stung and my heart swelled when Ender revealed he thought Valentine loved Peter more. This is not the heart of a monster. Ender, who can read the motives of others so well, can’t seem to see the difference between Peter’s motives and his own. Nor is he able to see clearly, in this instance, the motives of Valentine, the one who loves him so very much. Ender never needed to fear he was becoming Peter.
On the other hand, perhaps the quality of his heart is precisely what led him to worry. Perhaps that is part of what defines who is a good guy and who is not—the good guys realize they are as corruptible as any, and so they watch themselves, making sure both their actions and motives are as right as they can make them.
Peter Revisited
Did you notice the progression of appraisals I made above? Card presented the scene that triggered my initial tears for Ender. And then my cognitive appraisals kicked in, modifying my response, making it even more complex. Yes, it’s sad Ender can’t see he’s not like Peter at all, nor how much Valentine loves him. But upon reflection, the new thought and cognitive appraisal about what motivates “good guys” adds admiration to that sadness and transforms it into a more poignant experience. It also demonstrates something else.
Ender’s Game guides us through many moments of science fictional awe, fearful suspense, and triumph. A number of these experiences depend on Card guiding us into surprising appraisals of the situations we witness—appraisals that focus not on the externals but on the motives of the characters we meet. But it’s not only what Card has us imagine that forms our experience. It’s also what we imagine ourselves. We add our own imaginings to what Card presents us in the text and react to them with just as much power.
For example, the second time I read the last battle between the humans and the formics, I knew it wasn’t just a game but real humans sacrificing themselves. A brief image flickered into my mind of a group of people on a bridge in one of those ships looking at each other just before the end.
My heart swelled, and my experience of Ender’s Game was changed and deepened yet again. Truly, the experience of a book isn’t a fixed thing but something that changes over time. And changes outside the text.
Another even more poignant change came after I closed the book and began to develop my ideas for the very essay you’re reading. Going back through all my experiences with Peter, I suddenly had another thought and cognitive appraisal. Despite all the awful things we see him do, one might argue that Peter is the greatest hero of this book because he struggles against greater obstacles than anyone else—his psychopathy is in his DNA. He can’t help but want to kill, and yet he uses his hurtful instincts to work for world peace.
Is it possible? Did Peter have a heart that could love? We are never led, in the book, to imagine the antecedents that would trigger that assessment. It is only by adding my own imagination—a flash of a little boy struggling in dismay—and subsequent cognitive appraisals that I can feel deep sympathy for his plight as well as a mixture of awe and admiration at his struggle.
Did Card show us the hearts of three monsters, and show them all to be good? Could Peter actually be a hero?
I don’t know. I truly don’t.
But that thought, that prick of sympathy for that terrible boy, struggling against huge odds to do what’s right, is now part of my Ender’s Game experience.
Ultimately, even if Peter isn’t a hero, my time with Ender led me to think at least about the possibility. And perhaps, of all the wonderful gifts Ender’s Game has to give, this might be one of the finest. To help me remember—through hours of thrilling, heartbreaking, and ultimately triumphant experience—that although there are indeed a variety of monsters in life that must be dealt with, not all are necessarily what they seem. And to help me, if only a little, yearn for a more Ender-, and perhaps Peter-, and hive queen–like heart.
John Brown is an award-winning novelist and short story writer. Servant of a Dark God is the first in his epic fantasy series published by Tor Books. Brown currently lives with his wife and four daughters in the hinterlands of Utah, where one encounters much fresh air, many good-hearted ranchers, and an occasional wolf.
1 See Jenefer Robinson’s marvelous Deeper than Reason for an introduction to emotion and literature. Then read the delightful Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman to explore the ramifications of the two appraisal systems in a variety of other situations.
Q. Why is Ender ashamed of being a Third?
A. Ender learned early in life that he was taunted by some kids, and resented or shunned by others, because he was a third child. Long before he understood the legal restrictions on family size, he knew that it was socially unacceptable to be a third child. Later, he would learn that his birth came about because of reasons that redounded positively on his siblings and that his existence was neither illegal nor shameful, but it’s very hard to overcome the visceral experience of community rejection that he underwent from earliest childhood.
—OSC
Q. Is the Wiggin predisposition to military genius a natural genetic one, or was it altered in some artificial way?
When authorizing Ender to be born, did the IF use genetic manipulation or genetic screening, assuming they were choosing from a pool of zygotes? How could the IF be sure that Ender would be the perfect mix of Peter and Valentine?
A. The IF was not sure Ender would work out well. Peter and Valentine came so close, and were so off-the-charts excellent on some vital measures, that the IF thought the odds were very good that a third child from the same parents would be suitable for command.
The only genetic manipulation was that the IF suggested Ender’s parents time the conception in ways that increase the prevalence of Y rather than X spermatozoa, because a male child would be more likely to have the aggressiveness that Valentine lacked.
—OSC
Q. How was Peter too cruel or crazy to not be allowed into Battle School? Isn’t that what the military wanted, a person that would utterly destroy the formics? I believe that Peter would have destroyed them with the Little Doct
or without hesitating or regretting it, like Ender.
A. It isn’t enough to be eager to defeat the enemy. You also have to be able to inspire the loyalty, trust, and obedience of underlings and superiors within your own organization. As the Shadow books chronicle, Peter spent much of his life trying to learn things that came naturally to Ender, in order to be able to inspire people to follow his leadership politically. He would not have been able to do so within the time limits already looming over the project.
Soldiers will not willingly follow a commander who is so gung-ho that they believe he does not care about their wellbeing. It was Ender’s palpable love and concern for other soldiers, training them as assiduously as he trained himself, that inspired love and loyalty. Peter wouldn’t even have thought of behaving toward other soldiers as Ender did.
—OSC
THE COST OF BREAKING THE RULES
MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL
In 2005, I was fortunate enough to attend Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp. I had read his books Characters and Viewpoint and How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, but his boot camp itself was a transformative experience. Before boot camp, I felt as though I could write a good story by accident, and afterward, as though I could write one on purpose.
Card explained the rules and how fiction worked so clearly that it had gone from being a mysterious process to being something repeatable. After the camp, I pulled out my battered copy of Ender’s Game and re-read it because I wanted to see how he applied the rules that he just taught us.
I was stunned. Card breaks the rules all over the place. Pretty much every piece of wisdom I’d received in his boot camp, he took and inverted at least once in the book. One of the things he told us on Day One was, “If you catch yourself being wise, put it into the mouth of a fool.” But on the second page, he gives Ender, who is anything but a fool, this bit of wisdom:
Ender's World Page 4