Ender's Game

[Phred]

I got the feeling that Ender (and the rest of the kids) knew this was an actual war with aliens rather than it being presented as war games or an elaborate simulation.  That was the thing - finding out that what he and the others had been doing really wasn't a simulation or war games but they'd actually been fighting and killing the aliens all along was a huge mind-fuck for Ender and gave him some serious issues to deal with.  

I'm confused. Did he know it all along and keep his thought's hidden through the entire book or was it a huge mind fuck when he found out. Damn, the contradiction of this is killing me.

[SurfD]

In the book, it is pretty clear that it was a huge mindfuck for him when he finds out.  All that time, he believed he was being trained to assume command when the fighting started.  He never realized that the fighting had already started and his training exercises (after about mid way through) in the "simulator" were actually live combat engagements that he was directing.

[Ironwood]

The minute he went to Command School, he was in Command.

He didn't know that.

But apparently, in rewrites, Bean did.  Because of Retardery.

[Simond]

Reminder: Ender is future-Hitler.

[Ironwood]

 

[Shannow]

Interesting article on the development of this film

Still think it will be shit.


ps Obligatory note that Card is an arsehole.

[Ironwood]

My parents loved it.

Make of that what you will.  I'm still not spending money on it, no matter how much I wanted to see this movie made.

[HaemishM]

I'm still not spending money on it

This. Fuck Card in his tiny Mormon asshole.

[Samwise]

I'm going to try to organize a mass theater-hop with some friends.  Need to figure out which other movie to buy the tickets for.

[Ironwood]

I'm going to try to organize a mass theater-hop with some friends.  Need to figure out which other movie to buy the tickets for.

What's that ?  A Walkout ?

[MahrinSkel]

I'm going to try to organize a mass theater-hop with some friends.  Need to figure out which other movie to buy the tickets for.

What's that ?  A Walkout ?

Buy tickets for another movie, go see the one that you want to see, but don't want to get any of your money.  It's legal, and most of the time the theater operators don't care (especially if you buy popcorn).

--Dave

[Samwise]

I'm thinking Bad Grandpa is much more deserving of my box office receipts.

[Ironwood]

I'm going to try to organize a mass theater-hop with some friends.  Need to figure out which other movie to buy the tickets for.

What's that ?  A Walkout ?

Buy tickets for another movie, go see the one that you want to see, but don't want to get any of your money.  It's legal, and most of the time the theater operators don't care (especially if you buy popcorn).

--Dave

Hmmmm. 

[Evildrider]

See theater hopping to me is when you pay for a movie, watch it, then sneak into other movies when yours is over.

[Samwise]

Same exact effect.

[Rendakor]

Except that's closer to illegal, because you paid for one movie but saw two.

[Merusk]

I'm thinking Bad Grandpa is much more deserving of my box office receipts.

Bad Grandpa if you want to Encourage more Jackass spin-offs. The Turkey movie that comes out Friday if you want to encourage more bad CGI.

I'd give to Cloudy with a Chance2 if you didn't see it. Or how about Machete Kills.

[Signe]

Orson Scott Card and theatre popcorn contains as much fecal matter as shit.  I'd rather throw my $ in the toilet.

[kaid]

Reminder: Ender is future-Hitler.

The really ironic thing about the whole forgiving hitler sillyness is pretty much at the end of the bugger war ender was seen as a hero. He himself eventually changed peoples perception of himself until people came to revile him as the xenocide. It was him and him alone that convinced people that he did was wrong.

[Ironwood]

There is an argument to be made that he merely saw the truth before everyone else did...

I don't agree that he did anything with his own image.  It was more how he humanised the invaders.

Also, Ender isn't future Hitler.  I find all the wanking in the later books and from Critical Theorists to be so much toilet paper.  It's much, much better to keep that shit out of Enders Game.

[Khaldun]

I think of Ender's Game as one part "Fans are Slans", a bit like Gordon Dickson's early Dorsai books--basically a kind of reflexive bit of Mary Sueism that complimented and soothed most of its early readers. Most of us liked it because we saw ourselves in Ender (or maybe Peter and Valentine): bullied precocious geniuses surrounded by hostile structures who would win out in the end. The fact that 'winning out' at the end of the book means what it does was not something that a lot of us paid attention to--the parts of the book that were a draw were Ender in the Battle School.

The Battle School stuff still holds up in that sort of 'triumph of the bullied' sense and you can still sort of buy Ender as being so much a genius that he does what he does. The stuff with Peter and Valentine doesn't hold up at all (and was kind of laughable then, even.) The forward motion of the story at the very end is still effective (and Speaker for the Dead is maybe the book which demonstrates to me that Card used to have an ethical sensitivity that he's long since completely lost).

[Ironwood]

Red Prophet I reread recently and it was like it wasn't the same bloke.  Love and peace and understanding and nuance all you could think was 'Wow, 9/11 broke this motherfucker hard.'

[Margalis]

Ender's Game is the story of a guy who's way better than everyone else and is "reluctantly" forced to constantly show that off. It's hard to read it and not think about what kind of psyche it took to write it and how many times a day "I'll show them!!!" crossed their mind. No surprise at all that the author turned out to be a small-minded mean-spirited ass. It really rubbed me the wrong way at the time I read it, well before I knew anything about Card.

The high level "guy does training stuff that turns out to have been real the entire time" twist was a good idea, but the "people who fantasize about how they are way better than everyone else will love this book" angle is a huge turn-off. I suppose it's not too dissimilar from the typical "pig farmer turns out to be hero of legend" plot but it's presented in a very mean-spirited way, and is treated less as a sort of divine gift or fortunate revelation and more as plain genetic superiority. In most legendary hero stories the guy who finds out he is the chosen one still has to work hard to live up to that legacy, whereas Ender is just inherently awesome all the time without effort.

[SurfD]

Ender's Game is the story of a guy who's way better than everyone else and is "reluctantly" forced to constantly show that off. It's hard to read it and not think about what kind of psyche it took to write it and how many times a day "I'll show them!!!" crossed their mind. No surprise at all that the author turned out to be a small-minded mean-spirited ass. It really rubbed me the wrong way at the time I read it, well before I knew anything about Card.

The high level "guy does training stuff that turns out to have been real the entire time" twist was a good idea, but the "people who fantasize about how they are way better than everyone else will love this book" angle is a huge turn-off. I suppose it's not too dissimilar from the typical "pig farmer turns out to be hero of legend" plot but it's presented in a very mean-spirited way, and is treated less as a sort of divine gift or fortunate revelation and more as plain genetic superiority. In most legendary hero stories the guy who finds out he is the chosen one still has to work hard to live up to that legacy, whereas Ender is just inherently awesome all the time without effort.

Well, yeah.  I mean, wasn't it pretty much established right from about chapter 2 of the book that Ender quite literally was "born" to do what he was supposed to do?

[pxib]

A long, ultimately bitter article by an ex-child prodigy about rereading Ender's Game as an adult... and a writer.

Very opinionated. Covers a lot of ground.

[Margalis]

Well, yeah.  I mean, wasn't it pretty much established right from about chapter 2 of the book that Ender quite literally was "born" to do what he was supposed to do?

There are a lot of stories that use that template that don't give me the same vibe though. I mean, half of fantasy and anime use it. But typically the chosen one has to still go on a tough journey, train hard, meet reliable companions, overcome adversity, etc. They have the power but they have to unlock it and use it correctly. Whereas Ender is just always awesome. I mean, look at Star Wars. Luke is the chosen one but at the start of the first film he's kind of a naive dumbass who sucks at a lot of things.

A long, ultimately bitter article by an ex-child prodigy about rereading Ender's Game as an adult... and a writer.

The part about speaking subtext is a great observation.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, what really troubled me about the whole thing was that Ender was meant to be this genius and he hadn't even figured out the twist in the novel half way through like I had.

 

[Ironwood]

A long, ultimately bitter article by an ex-child prodigy about rereading Ender's Game as an adult... and a writer.

Very opinionated. Covers a lot of ground.

What he said about Lost Boys is bang on.  That fucking book is MENTAL.

[HaemishM]

You all seem to be forgetting that Ender is just one of an entire cast of characters who are all utterly unlikeable, unsympathetic and annoying as hell, and glossing over the very painfully awkward incestuous vibe given off by Ender and his sister. I'm glad I didn't read the book until adulthood because I might have liked it otherwise. 

[Venkman]

Yeah, what really troubled me about the whole thing was that Ender was meant to be this genius and he hadn't even figured out the twist in the novel half way through like I had.

I first read it around when it came out, I was 15 and just a year into creating Zork knockoffs on my Apple //e, about a year before even getting a color monitor, and a few years before ST: The Next Generation introduce Holodecks into the zeitgeist, and Black September introduced the internet ("public forums") to the masses. I lacked the kind of context to make your leap

Nowadays though it's passe. The whole book is. I don't care about Card the person, but the whole plot has been done to death now: Child prodigy gets special treatment and training to take down the bad guys. Maybe audiences will go for that twist. But shit, they had that as far back as Toys.

I will say that at least it looks like this isn't a I, Robot/World War Z style brand labelslap over some other script.

[Ironwood]

Also, Peter regularly 'abuses' her.

Valentine is an awful character, awfully written.

Again, I didn't get that until I was older.

[SurfD]

Well, yeah.  I mean, wasn't it pretty much established right from about chapter 2 of the book that Ender quite literally was "born" to do what he was supposed to do?

There are a lot of stories that use that template that don't give me the same vibe though. I mean, half of fantasy and anime use it. But typically the chosen one has to still go on a tough journey, train hard, meet reliable companions, overcome adversity, etc. They have the power but they have to unlock it and use it correctly. Whereas Ender is just always awesome. I mean, look at Star Wars. Luke is the chosen one but at the start of the first film he's kind of a naive dumbass who sucks at a lot of things.

Right, but again.  Comparing Luke to Ender is a pretty much impossible.   Luke had NO idea at all who he was, what his background was.  If Luke had known right from the start that his father was one of the greatest Jedi figures in history, how do you think he would have turned out?   Luke being the "naieve hero" was central to his character.    Ender knew from an insanely early age that he was special.  I mean, in a society where having a 3rd child is a HUGE deal, that alone would have marked him as special from day one.   Being "the Third" would have shaped his entire character.

[tazelbain]

I am really starting to hate chosen ones.

[Margalis]

I read it in college. I was a voracious Sci-Fi reader up to that point, which is maybe why I was immune to its appeal. It just did nothing for me at all.

Maybe had I been younger or had not read as much other SF it would have been different. I don't know if it's considered YA but it definitely feels like the kind of thing that would appeal more to people less familiar with the genre.

[Ingmar]

I think literally every person I know who liked it read it somewhere in the 10-14 age range or so, and most of them were suffering bullying issues or whatever. It's not hard to see why the other stuff would pass someone by if they get that strongly attached to that part of the theme, it's when they reread it as adults and don't give it a side-eye afterwards that I don't get.