Ever since I first read Ender’s Game in middle school, it has been my favorite book. If you haven’t read it, or it’s been a while, I highly recommend adding it to your reading list. While some may consider Ender’s Game a young adult novel, the book contains something for everyone at any age. In fact, each time I read the book as I get older, I interpret it slightly differently and find new lessons within its pages.
Book Stats
- Title: Ender’s Game
- Author: Orson Scott Card
- Genre: Science Fiction
- Series: Ender’s Game series, a.k.a. Enderverse
- Publication Date: January 15, 1985
- Pages: 324
- Est. Reading Time: 10 – 15 hours
- My Rating: 5/5 Stars
- Buy Now: Amazon
Ender’s Game: Plot Summary
Ender’s Game is the story of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, a genius child born to learn military strategy and command humanity’s starship fleet against an alien enemy. When the story begins, Earth has previously faced two invasions by the Formics, an insect-like alien race often called the “buggers”. Having barely survived the buggers’ first two invasions, a world military is formed, known as the International Fleet (I.F.), and a Battle School is created to train gifted children in military strategy to defend against a third invasion.
The I.F. has been monitoring Ender all his life for selection into Battle School, due to the promise shown by his two older siblings. After Ender, at the age of 6, wins a fight with the school bully and beats him mercilessly, I.F. Colonel Hyrum Graff visits to ask him about the fight. Ender replies, “Knocking him down won the first fight. I wanted to win all the next ones, too. So they’d leave me alone.” And is accepted into Battle School.
Battle School
Upon leaving his family to attend Battle School in Earth orbit, Ender is isolated from the other recruits as the star student. The Battle School is built around a game in the battleroom, a form of zero gravity laser tag, where students are organized into armies and compete against each other for rankings. Ender is soon promoted to commander of a new army and as he continues to win in the battleroom, even with the odds stacked against him, resentment grows among some of the other students and commanders.
Eventually, Ender’s old commander, Bonzo Madrid, catches Ender alone and corners him. Bonzo feels humiliated by a recent loss to Ender and wants to kill him. Despite Ender’s attempts to reason with Bonzo, he is forced to defend himself and, although Bonzo is bigger and several years older, Ender wins the fight quickly.
“Ender Wiggin isn’t a killer. He just wins – thoroughly. If anybody’s going to be scared, let it be the buggers.”
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
Command School
Ender is then given a brief leave on Earth before continuing his training at Command School. There, he faces a series of ever more challenging battle simulations; at first alone, and later with some of his friends from Battle School as his lieutenants. Worn down from the grueling training schedule, Ender reaches his final test: a simulation against an overwhelming bugger force. Can he find a way to win against all odds, or will he lose and fail after coming so far?
“If you try and lose then it isn’t your fault. But if you don’t try and we lose, then it’s all your fault. You killed us all.”
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
Ender’s Game: Action
When I first read Ender’s Game, as a teenager, I was drawn in by the action. The fights, the battleroom, the simulations; all felt real to me. As if I could be there, in Ender’s place, thinking his thoughts, taking his actions. And I found these imagined experiences helped me in real life, to avoid fights, cope with bullying, and motivate my schoolwork and learning.
Above all, Ender’s purpose stood out to me when I was young. Unlike most children, who are just expected to grow up and determine their purpose as adults, Ender was needed to save humanity now, as a child. I believe this is a powerful lesson, that the greatest ideas and accomplishments do not always come with age.
“Does it ever seem to you that these boys aren’t children? I look at what they do, the way they talk, and they don’t seem like little kids.”
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
I’m also fascinated by the concept of the battleroom and the disorientation often mentioned as a side effect of zero gravity. Many of the Battle School recruits struggle with how to recognize up and down when entering zero-G and cling to their old orientation. Ender’s ability to re-orient himself quickly to the new environment is one of his greatest strengths and comes into play several times throughout the book.
“Remember, the enemy’s gate is down.”
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
While I’ve never experienced true weightlessness in space (maybe someday), a similar disorientation exists for scuba diving. When learning to dive, and in my dives since, I’ve had to re-orient myself to the ocean environment. Unlike zero-G, buoyancy does maintain an up and down, but it often doesn’t make sense to “stand” underwater and you are free to orient yourself in any orientation you’d like.
Ender’s Game: Philosophy
Now, as I get older, I find the philosophy of the book more interesting. For example, investigating Ender’s purpose further, it is suggested that one’s purpose comes from society and those around them. However, to be successful, you must choose to believe in that purpose for yourself.
“Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people you love.”
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
In Ender’s case, humanity needs him for survival against the buggers, but if he is not fully committed to this cause, he will fail. Thus, Colonel Graff must strike a delicate balance between pushing and isolating Ender for his training and keeping him attached to Earth and humanity, so that he has something to fight for. Ender’s siblings, Peter and Valentine, are crucial to this theme throughout the book.
Ruthlessness and Power
Peter represents ruthlessness, power, and the ability to cause harm. Ender dislikes his brother and wants to be nothing like him. Unfortunately, Ender continues to find similar traits in himself throughout his training. Particularly, when he is forced to harm others to defend himself. At one point, he thinks, “I’m hurting people again, just to save myself. Why don’t they leave me alone, so I don’t have to hurt them?” Later, Ender decides:
“Peter might be scum, but Peter had been right, always right; the power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can’t kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you.”
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
Love and Compassion
On the contrary, Valentine represents love and compassion. Ender loves his sister and she is his main tie to humanity. When he struggles, she is often called upon to reassure him and convince him to move forward. It is a balance of ruthlessness and compassion which Ender will need to succeed.
“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them… I destroy them.”
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
As Ender struggles to achieve this balance, he is often faced with depression. At each stage of his training, Ender contemplates giving up and succumbing to his negative thoughts. Fortunately, his love for Valentine and his competitive drive to succeed help see him through each challenge.
“Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, then happiness as we can manage it.”
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
What Will You Find in Ender’s Game?
These are simply my thoughts on the incredible story of Ender’s Game. You’ll have to read for yourself to see how your experiences shape the story. The variety of meanings one can glean from this book are best explained by the author, Orson Scott Card, in the 1991 edition’s introduction:
“The story in my mind is nothing but a hope; the text of the story is the tool I created in order to try to make that hope a reality. The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided and shaped by my text, but then transformed, elucidated, expanded, edited, and clarified by their own experience, their own desires, their own hopes and fears.”
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game, Introduction
The idea of placing yourself in the books you read to enjoy them to the fullest extent is not unique to Ender’s Game. However, it is one of the first books I read where doing so truly clicked for me. Check out Why Read Fiction? – To Learn About Yourself for a more in-depth discussion of this concept.
What will you find in Ender’s Game? A story of military conflict and strategy, a look at dealing with pressure to succeed and bullying, the search for one’s purpose, or maybe something else entirely.
If you haven’t yet read Ender’s Game, I strongly suggest you experience the ending when reading the book for the first time. For those who have read it or know the ending, check out Ender’s Game: Ending Reviewed.
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