Much of our discussion in class on Thursday revolved around Ender's abilities and characteristics and the way in which these intersect with the fact that he is still a child. We frequently went back and forth over how Ender's empathy played into the story. It is the key aspect of his character that makes him perfect for the task of defeating the buggers because it allows him to think like them. It is also the reason that the military had to trick him into killing the buggers because it is this characteristic that would not allow him to destroy the buggers if he really knew the stakes. His empathetic nature takes the two contradictory aspects of Valentine and Peter and combines them: Valentine understands people's wants and uses this to make them see her side and Peter uncovers people's fears and exploits them. Ender sees both sides of a person (or a bugger) and uses it, not necessarily to benefit himself, but to do what he thinks is best. He knows, as Phil put it in class, that the key to mastering interactions with other individuals is to understand them completely. And, unlike Peter, Ender can use his empathy to do positive things and not just to destroy. Taking a statement from another blog, "I think it is particularly meaningful that the novel ends with one of these moments of perfect understanding, and that this understanding leads not to further destruction but to a profound expression of mutual regret, and to the possibility of redemption" (http://terrans.tumblr.com/).
All through our discussion of what made Ender the perfect candidate for the task, I could not help thinking about the concept of fate and how this could have possibly played into the story. I was actually surprised that this didn't come up in class. It seemed to me that the idea of fate is a possible piece of the storyline because of the fact that no matter what Ender does, even when he forgets the rules of the games in order to just get it done with, he manages to do what the military wants. He plays right into their plan no matter how he tries to change things. One could argue that this is because it is Ender's fate to kill the buggers and (supposedly) "save humanity." As Valentine puts it, "Nobody controls his own life....The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given to you by good people, by people who love you" (313). She acknowledges that Ender did not have complete control over what happened, but there are choices, nonetheless.
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I too am fascinated by this question of fate vs. free will. There is an irony in the story - that for such an intelligent child Ender is so easily manipulated, like a pawn or Pinocchio on a string. I can see both fate and free will in Ender's Game, as contradictory as that sounds. In general I think life is a combination of the two. I like to think that the people we meet and situations we go through occur for a reason.
ReplyDeleteOn the side of free will - Ender is keenly aware that the teachers are manipulating him yet he decides that he will continue towards battle school. As he says on the way to Graff, I choose survival. On the side of fate – Ender has been genetically created to be the perfect killing machine. He is born to be a commander, maneuvered into the position and finally pushed into leaving earth indefinitely by the civil war, Peter and Valentine.
Yet, as Jackie pointed out, he always has choices – we all do. I think that within the parameters of our lives, which are determined by forces outside of ourselves, what we call fate, we have choices and free will. The choices determine the direction of our lives within those parameters.