This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
fizzmaister: Why is You Fail Biology Forever listed? Unless I remember poorly, Ender's parents were allowed a third child in the hope, not the guarantee, that their third child would have the brilliance that everyone in their family had, but with compassion, unlike their first child, and with drive, unlike their second child. The fact that Ender was born with the traits that they wanted was just plot related expediency.
slb: The trope title's implication is that the book assumes, if kid A is aggressive and cruel yet kid B is kind and passive, kid C will be a mix of the two: aggressive and kind, when it Does Not Work That Way.
Speaking of that category, I removed the following from the You Fail Biology Forever section:
- That isn't biology, that's psychology, thinking that him being raised with one driven but merciless sibling and one compassionate and caring one would create someone with a balance between the two philosophies is hardly epic fail.
- This troper also thought it was clear that the government knew it was a crap shoot. The Wiggins produced two super-geniuses with just the wrong personality to be commanders, so they gave permission to try for a third and crossed their fingers that this one would work out.
for natter, personal conjecture and all that good stuff. There are a dozen better ways to fix up an article on Tv Tropes than to say "I think." I don't disagree with the disagreement, it's the writing style that just acts as a forum thread.
Dalantia: Pulling the following, as any subtext perceived there is coincidental. OSC is American, writing in American English, writing about American children, and the aliens were insectoids. Bugger can easily be conceived as a derogatory "enemy name" for that kind of thing. If British people insist on interpreting it poorly, that's their problem. ;p
- Getting Crap Past the Radar - "Bugger", in British English is a mild curse word referring to, well, buggery. Reading conversations like "Let's play spacemen and buggers! You're the bugger!" seems a bit hentai to British readers. May actually be Did Not Do The Research.
- May simply be that it's the sort of thing kids find funny.
- P.O.V. Sequel Ender's Shadow hung a lampshade on this with the nun Sister Carlotta calling them "Formics" since "Buggers" is a "curse word".
Jefepato: I don't really see the Mind Screw — maybe in the sequels, but certainly not the original. (The fantasy game was perhaps something of a Mind Screw for Ender himself, but not really for the reader.)
Cameoflage: I have to agree; I was rather baffled by that trope's inclusion. (I haven't read the sequels at all, for the record.)
If you look at the guy's comic explanation/rationale, you'll notice that it's only a mind screw if you're susceptible to Logic Bombs
Bob: I think the example should be rewritten as an in-story example. The game Ender plays definitely take the form of a Mind Screw.
Am I the only one who thinks "Dr. Device" is the most suggestive name for a WMD ever?
Servitor_2152: Okay, I haven't read the book and the Internet is no help. Could someone please explain to me exactly how Ender manages to kill two presumably-healthy boys by kicking them in the crotch?! Or do they never explain it?
Em Be: @Servitor_2152: in the first fight, the kick to the crotch was just to knock his opponent down so Ender was free to kick them in the face; in the second fight, Ender had already hit his opponent in the face, and finished up by kicking them in the crotch - presumably they were already dying from bone being pushed into their brain...
Apparently, the crotch is a weakpoint in the human body. Kick it hard enough to break the pelvis and very bad things can happen...
Dalantia: Invoking my slight medical background here: A broken pelvis is an instant rush to a high-level trauma center, probably via lifeflight, and is critical trauma, only caused by a significant amount of force. It is a very pivotal bone in the human body, and has a lot of blood to go around. Breaking it in a non-chip manner is going to cause.. very bad things.
However, Ender didn't kill those kids via groinshots, from my reading of it. He killed them via blows to the chest and face, or just massive trauma - most likely crushing the nose inward and causing the pressure on the brain to cause organ failure in Bonzo's case, and blood loss (faces -bleed-. a -lot-. and if he broke his nose in the same manner as he did Bonzo's) or broken ribs puncturing lungs in Stilson's. Kids -seem- durable, but if you put them under enough force to kill an adult, it can easily kill them twice over, especially if you don't get them help quickly.
I am not a doctor, though, and am making educated guesses based on my EMT training. Take that as you will.
grendelkhan: Oh, boy. This is Flame Bait; I may add a note to the main page if this sort of thing keeps cropping up. Removed from Your Mileage May Vary:
- To be fair to the series, those people quite obviously never read beyond the first half of the book. As time goes on, Ender suffers from severe depression as a result of his actions and intiates the very religion and religious books that eventually turn him into a monster in the eyes of the people. He also rebuilds the race that he destroyed and helps another reach the stars.
- Card once defended himself on this count to one of his critics, eventually stating that if she was able to connect Ender with Hitler based on so many obscure, coincidental details, then clearly the only one obsessed with Hitler was her. Really, the only way you could make the connection is to heavily research Hitler, then pick up Ender's Game with precisely this agenda in mind, then ignore everything to the contrary.
In the first case, the whole point is that Ender takes guilt upon himself, which we're repeatedly assured is completely unnecessary, because he's the hero. (From "Creating the Innocent Killer": "The novel repeatedly tells us that Ender is morally spotless; though he ultimately takes on guilt for the extermination of the alien buggers, his assuming this guilt is a gratuitous act. He is presented as a scapegoat for the acts of others.") The novel is carefully constructed to make the reader's opinion of Ender completely at odds with his actual actions; that's the whole point. Ironically, "those people" writing the first criticism apparently never read beyond the first three paragraphs of Kessel's essay.
To the second, I can do no better than to point out localroger's response to the same criticisms
. In short, there's a theory that Card's original purpose was to pull one over on the SF community, by making everyone identify with Hitler, but Elaine Radford spoiled the joke. Then there's the theory that Card didn't actually write the first two books entirely by himself, since he seemed ignorant of some details of his own books when trying to rebut Radford in the first place. But this is all conjecture; the point is that the minor details are hardly the main body of evidence for the theory that Ender Wiggin is Tiny Naked Hitler.
Card fills most of his books with mary sues. From Ender being "ZOMG PERFECT AWESOME WIN FOREVER" to Bean somehow being even MORE of a mary sue, it shows card to be even more of a hack than thought. Should this be added to the page?
- Added it, for Bean at least, in as non-inflammatory a way possible. (To me, Ender is a marginal case.) ~SlvstrChung
weisquared: I was thinking about the Mohs Scale Of Science Fiction Hardness and was wondering where you all thought Ender's Game (and the rest) fit. I think I'm having some trouble since it depends which book is being followed. Ender's Game seems to be a 3, since there is FTL message sending, but there rest of it (except for the magic alien gravity I suppose) are mostly believable, the sequels a 2 (philotes can create people from the mind), but I'm stuck on Ender's Shadow (and sequels). Regulation for a single gene leading to ceaseless growth (and thus increased intelligence, odd puberty, ect) seems a bit unrealistic, but I'm not a geneticist, so I can't really decide. Thoughts?
- I'm no geneticist either, and this is about the first book, but one criticism I read is that the way the International Fleet tries to "breed" commanders is very far-fetched. The critic had a hobby of breeding pet birds, and pointed out that it's insanely hard just to breed one with a particular feather colour; so when in the book the Fleet just has the same parents have more children, hoping that they'll all have the same traits, infinitely more complex than something like feather colour, and that the girl will be "softer" than her older brother while otherwise the same, and that the third child will be a nice "compromise" between the first two... So Yeah. Anyway, I'd put the first book under 2, though perhaps towards the harder end of 2, because aside from FTL and unexplained gravity machines it also has the Death Ray that somehow creates a magical chain reaction in everything it touches that can destroy an entire planet, plus the above-mentioned gene stuff, plus alien faster-than-light telepathy...
Fighteer: I don't see how the Action Girl trope applies. All the children in Battle School are trained as combatants and commanders, so there's no particular point to calling out the girls in this regard.
- Well, let's look at the actual Action Girl trope: "a female character who is spunky, agile, and can take you down with an array of kicks, punches, or diverse Weapons Of Choice." It doesn't matter if she's just one female member of a whole group of Action People. It does not matter whether she uses raw physical power, or agility and weapons (as Petra does). It does not matter if it's training or actual combat. All that matters is that we have an important female character, one of the defining qualities of whom, is that she has impressive and noteworthy physical combat skills, and is capable of holding her own in physical confrontations. Petra very definitely fits this trope. The battle training in Battle School is physical combat, relying on agility, reflexes, and good use of weapons, all of which Petra exhibits. Petra's female-ness is also note-worthy, as she is stated to be one of few female Battle School cadets, and the only one of importance in the plot. Honestly, I do not understand why this is controversial, or how she can possibly not be seen as an action girl. I am once again restoring this to the page, because I feel it very clearly applies. I think it would be more productive if you made any further arguments you have here before deleting it once more.
- Fair enough, but why all the emphasis on her breakdown - it's already covered under Positive Discrimination.
- That's a fairer point... I personally feel it is relevant because it contrasts with her tough, strong nature as illustrated in the earlier parts of the book. One element of an Action Girl would have to be being strong and cool under pressure, being able to handle stress in combat situations, etc. That's just part of the Badass-aspect of an Action Girl. While it's true that Petra's breakdown did not take place during physical combat, it nonetheless seems relevant to me. She is in a combat situation, facing overwhelming odds, fighting many opponents (even if not directly); she physically breaks down from the pressure. Certainly both the demands placed on her and the breakdown she experienced have physical components, even if not as directly as the battle school training. So while I agree that these points may not have quite as obvious a connection to the Action Girl trope as Petra's character overall, I felt they were nonetheless important to mention in relation to her status as an Action Girl, a complication in the way the trope applies to her.
- Ugh, I hate the Double Standard of that trope. Action Girl versus Non-Action Guy. Anyway, part of the reason I messed with it is that there's a lot of Natter and Your Mileage May Vary strewn about this page, and it needs to get cleaned up a bit.
- Both tropes depend on expected gender behaviours that have their roots in Real Life double standards that are still fairly common in most cultures around the world. It is a fact that women, at least until recently, simply were not expected to be physically active or capable of holding their own in a physical confrontation, while men were expected to be able to stand up for themselves to some extent. Heck, in real life this expectation is still perfectly alive and well, although subverting it in media has obviously become much more common than it once was. There's plenty of Action Girl s out there in films, books, and TV shows these days, but they are still quite rare compared to action guys, and they aren't always treated the same way as guys when they do appear. So basically, as I see it, the reason for the "double standard" in the Action Girl trope is because the trope itself is a subversion of an older, now-weakening, but still common, double standard that held that female characters must be weaker and more helpless in physical conflict than men. As for cleaning up this as a whole, I'm all for that; maybe the bit about Petra's breakdown can be neatened up or shortened a bit, but I do feel it is relevant enough to her status as an Action Girl to mention it under the trope, as it is now.
