While we talked a lot about the nature of Ender’s personality last week I was left with the question of intentions. Someone pointed out during class that while Ender has consistently had good intentions, his actions have been destructive. While, on the other hand, Peter has consistently had bad intentions and his actions have spared many lives and resulted in positive consequences. This is reflected on p. 238 when Valentine and Ender meet at the lake. She thinks to herself, “Peter has mellowed, but you they’ve made you into a killer. Two sides of the same coin, but which side is which?” This leaves me with the question: are our intentions more important than our actions? I think both are important, but they are more or less significant depending on the situation.
Gunperi raised another fascinating point in last week’s class about Ender’s intelligence. She criticized him severely and claimed that he is a troubled child, and either rather unintelligent because he allowed the military to control him or not as empathic as he claims to be.
I also enjoyed Phil’s criteria of what makes killing acceptable. From the buggers’ and our perspective, it is OK to kill a being if it is less intelligent than us. Only when the buggers discovered that humans are sentient beings with intelligence comparable to their own did they begin to respect us. We do the same with animals by drawing a distinction in our minds between murdering a human and killing animals. It is also rather selfish if you think about it – the buggers changed their mind about us because they not only valued our intelligence but realized they could learn from us and better themselves in the process.
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