This review focuses on the ending of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. For a general review of the book as a whole, please start by reading the article Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.
*** Warning: This post contains spoilers ***
*** Warning: This post contains spoilers ***
Ender’s Game Ending: Plot Summary
We’ll pick up the summary with Ender about to face his final test, a battle simulation against an overwhelming bugger force defending their homeworld. For a general recap of how Ender got to this point, read here.
With the odds stacked impossibly against him, Ender decides to target the enemy planet as the only hope of victory. Believing the simulation will not be programmed for this tactic, he is shocked to watch as the planet explodes, destroying the bugger fleet along with most of his ships. A cheer erupts from the generals and politicians who had come to watch Ender’s final “test”, and it is revealed that the simulations had been real and the war has just been won.
Despite the exuberance around him, Ender is exhausted and depressed. He does not want the genocide of the entire bugger race on his conscience. If only he’d known it was real, there might have been another way. He remains on Eros sleeping and barely leaving his quarters as a civil war rages on Earth for power, now that there is no common enemy to unite against.
After the War
After the fighting ends and Ender’s friends from Battle School begin to return home to Earth, it’s revealed that the peace treaty has barred Ender from returning to avoid his talent for military strategy disrupting the balance of power. Ender is very lonely and lacks purpose, until his sister, Valentine, arrives on Eros and invites him to join her as a colonist to one of the bugger’s nearby abandoned planets.
“He could not imagine what “just living” might actually be. He had never done it in his life. But he wanted to do it anyway.”
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
As Ender explores the new colony world, he discovers the egg of a bugger queen and finds he can communicate with her mind-to-mind. She has been waiting for him and wants his help to find a suitable place to hatch and rebuild. Ender agrees, and writes a book about the buggers under the pen name “Speaker for the Dead” to help humanity understand their past enemy, while he searches for somewhere they can live together in peace.
Ender’s Game Ending: Foreshadowing
Perhaps you were able to predict the simulations were real before it was revealed to Ender. I know I was suspicious based on the furious pace of the training program and several key quotes from earlier in the book. For instance, early in Ender’s training, General Graff is discussing the Battle School training method with a colleague and reveals Earth’s fleet is en route to the bugger homeworlds. This is a crucial realization, as few know this secret and most, including Ender, view the Battle School as preparation for Earth’s defense.
“If Ender isn’t the one, if his peak of military brilliance does not coincide with the arrival of our fleet at the bugger homeworlds, then it doesn’t really matter what our training method is or isn’t.”
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
Another, more discreet quote foreshadowing the ending comes when Valentine thinks, “Perhaps it’s impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.” For Valentine, this relates to her role as Demosthenes, a persona she uses on the nets to write political commentary but doesn’t always agree with. However, I feel it’s even more appropriate for Ender, who is learning to be a military commander but is also a pacifist and doesn’t want to harm anyone.
No Teacher but the Enemy
Finally, a big clue is given near the end of the book, when Mazer Rackham becomes Ender’s teacher and is said to be running the simulations. Mazer himself tells Ender “there is no teacher but the enemy” and when Ender confronts him after the first simulation saying it was too easy, he plays it off as realistic. Once you know the ending, it can be seen that Mazer is analyzing the “simulations” just as much as Ender during their post-battle discussions but must pretend as if he planned them.
“There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on I am your teacher.”
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
Implications for Ender
The world views him as a hero for winning the war, but he only sees himself as a murderer, who wiped out an entire alien race. While the civil war rages on Earth and Ender recuperates from exhaustion at Command School on Eros, he must come to grips with what happened and learn to live on. A key moment near the end of his recovery is when his battle school friends visit his room and he thinks someone is coming to kill him. Rather than surrender, he tries to strike first, deciding he’d rather be alive than dead:
“When I thought you were about to kill me, and I decided to kill you first. I guess I’m just a killer to the core. But I’d rather be alive than dead.”
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
Thankfully, Valentine uses her political influence as Demosthenes to prevent Ender from returning to Earth. At first, Ender is angry at this, but later realizes it was for the best. On Earth, he would have become a pawn in the struggle for power, with whichever army he commands having considerable advantage. Whereas, the colonization effort brings Ender to the Hive Queen, who gives him renewed purpose.
“People always go. Always. They always believe they can make a better life than in the old world.” – Colonel Graff on the colonization of bugger worlds.
– Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
Ender’s Future
Ender becomes the governor of the first colony and must learn the differences between military command and civilian leadership. While he comes to enjoy ensuring the success of the colony and helping its inhabitants, he still lacks purpose. Until he goes out exploring for a suitable location to place another settlement and finds scenes from the mind game he played in Battle School built in the real world.
This discovery leads Ender to the final room of the mind game, where he finds the egg of a bugger queen waiting for him. The buggers hadn’t realized humans were sentient during the first invasions but could not find a way to communicate once they realized the mistake. So, the mind game re-creation and egg were left as a last attempt to avoid extinction. Ender had thought of this possibility earlier in a discussion with Colonel Graff where he says, “So the whole war is because we can’t talk to each other.”
As Ender communicates with the Hive Queen and begins to search for a suitable home for her, he writes a book about the buggers’ history and signs it as Speaker for the Dead. Later, Ender writes the story of his brother, Peter, who becomes Hegemon of Earth. Together, the two books are published as “The Hive-Queen and the Hegemon”. For many, this becomes a type of religion and funerals begin to often have a Speaker for the Dead to tell the story of the deceased.
Ender continues to travel between colonies searching for a home for the Hive Queen, and due to the relativity of high-speed space flight, many years pass for most of humanity. This allows the memory of the war with the buggers to fade, so they can one day, hopefully, live together in peace.
Ender’s Story Continues in the Enderverse
If you enjoyed reading Ender’s Game, I recommend you read more of the books in the series, also called the Enderverse. While Ender’s Game may get the most notoriety, I think the others are just as good. To continue Ender’s story, read Speaker for the Dead. However, if you enjoyed the action more so than Ender’s thoughts and philosophy, you might better enjoy continuing Bean’s story in Ender’s Shadow.
I hope you enjoyed reading Ender’s Game as much as me! What were your favorite quotes / moments? Were you surprised by the ending? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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