History YMMV / EndersGame

** Just about everybody at battle school seems to be some kind of ethnic stereotype- a FrenchJerk, a cynical Israeli character with a big nose who calls people "goy", a haughty Spanish character named ''Madrid'' whose pride is specifically mentioned to be because of his heritage. Add to that vaguely uncomfortable allusions to the Jews having a disproportionately high number of commanders, Ender calling Alai the N-word, Alai calling Shen "slanty-eyed", the characters almost constantly referring to one another in racial terms...and yet, the book seems to genuinely promote a message of human unity. It reads like an anti-racism message from a Victorian phrenologist who's never actually interacted with a non-white person.

** Right after the first trailer was released, debate erupted over whether it spoiled the twist ending or whether ''the complainers'' were the ones spoiling it by openly whining about it.

* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: Battle School is supposed to be horrible, and show the inhumane effects war can have on everyone to the point of training ChildSoldiers. But the training in Battle School that the book goes into much detail about sounds like zero gravity laser tag combined with CaptureTheFlag. And the Command School simulations sound like a really advanced RealTimeStrategy game. And in his off hours Ender gets to relax with a ([[SeinfeldIsUnfunny for the time]]) really advanced AdventureGame. It all sounds really fun, Ender's specific trauma notwithstanding.

** Soldiers treating it like such a big deal that Ender thinks outside the box while playing a video game. Sure, there are in-story reasons, but with video games becoming such an important part of childhood, and with so many types of video games out there (including those that encourage outside-the-box tactics), it feels silly that no one else ever thought of attacking the giant in the game. [[OlderThanTheyThink Yes, even in 1985]]: The first three games of the ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' series predate this book, and one of the series' {{Running Gag}}s is players finding various implausible ways to kill BigGood Lord British for much less InUniverse justification than the giant gave (so much so that [[LordBritishPostulate it named a trope]]).
*** Similarly, it's hard to comprehend that "fly towards the enemy feet-first to present a smaller target" wasn't the first thing they figured out about zero-g combat.
** Just about everybody at battle school seems to be some kind of ethnic stereotype- a FrenchJerk, a cynical Israeli character with a big nose who calls people "goy", a haughty Spanish character named ''Madrid'' whose pride is specifically mentioned to be because of his heritage. Add to that vaguely uncomfortable allusions to the Jews having a disproportionally high number of commanders, Ender calling Alai the N-word, Alai calling Shen "slanty-eyed", the characters almost constantly referring to one another in racial terms...and yet, the book seems to genuinely promote a message of human unity. It reads like an anti-racism message from a Victorian phrenologist who's never actually interacted with a non-white person.

* OneSceneWonder: Though Achilles is present throughout most of the ''Shadow'' series, there is exactly one chapter from his point of view. '''[[AGodAmI HOLY COW.]]'''
* RonTheDeathEater: Ender again, see AlternateCharacterInterpretation above.

* TheWoobie: Ender

* WhatTheHellCastingAgency: Casting Moises Arias as Bonzo (Rico in ''Series/HannahMontana'') made it impossible to take him seriously, given how much shorter he is than Creator/AsaButterfield. We're supposed to take him seriously as a physical threat, but that's impossible because Ender could clearly take him if it were realistic. This is on top of his whiny, high-pitched voice, his petulant personality, and his cheesy ''"Salamander's number one!"'' chant (which sounds like something ripped out of a summer camp comedy). Back in the book, his EstablishingCharacterMoment came when he was disgusted at how small Ender was when he got put in his army, thus making him comment that Ender could "Walk between his legs and not even hit his balls."

* ValuesDissonance: While many aspects were uncomfortable even when the book came out, a ''lot'' of things would not fly today. There's the character Rose de Nose, for example, an Israeli character that's mean to Ender and says he's "nothing but a pinheaded pinprick of a goy." The K-Slur is also said in this scene, and there are some UnfortunateImplications about so many of the Strategos being Jewish. In another scene, Ender calls Alai the N Word, and Alai calls Shen (an Asian character) "slanty-eyed."

* FandomEnragingMisconception: Calling the book a Young Adult novel is a surefire way to piss off fans of the story. The book may be readable at a middle school level, but it is no more "just" for kids than ''Literature/ToKillAMockingbird'' which tends to be read at middle school level. The fact that the movie adaptation adapted the book as though it were a young adult novel certainly didn't help.

** Casting Moises Arias as Bonzo (Rico in ''Series/HannahMontana'') made it impossible to take him seriously, given how much shorter he is than Creator/AsaButterfield. We're supposed to take him seriously as a physical threat, but that's impossible because Ender could clearly take him if it were realistic. This is on top of his whiny, high-pitched voice, his petulant personality, and his cheesy ''"Salamander's number one!"'' chant (which sounds like something ripped out of a summer camp comedy). Back in the book, his EstablishingCharacterMoment came when he was disgusted at how small Ender was when he got put in his army, thus making him comment that Ender could "Walk between his legs and not even hit his balls."

** After the end of the Bugger war, a Second Warsaw Pact starts [=WW3=] on Earth. In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and talk began about president Vladimir Putin aiming to restore the Cold War-era Soviet Bloc.

* DeathOfTheAuthor: An odd example. Card's unapologetic statements on homosexuality have attracted a lot of controversy, but he's stated the book to not be about homosexuality in any way (instead pointing out that gay marriage was not a hot-button issue at the time the book was written). All the same, many readers attribute his beliefs to some aspects of the novel. Others believe the book could be applied to the LGBT struggle due to its theme of being an outcast and attempting to function in a society where one doesn't fit in. In the midst of all this, readers argue if Card's own personal views can be removed from the book at all and how much it should affect their enjoyment of it.

* DeathOfTheAuthor: An odd example. Card's unapologetic statements on homosexuality have attracted a lot of controversy, but he's stated the book to not be about homosexuality in any way (instead pointing out that gay marriage was not a hot-button issue at the time the book was written). All the same, many readers attribute his beliefs to some aspects of the novel. Others believe the book could be applied to queer oppression due to its theme of being an outcast and attempting to function in a society where one doesn't fit in. In the midst of all this, readers argue if Card's own personal views can be removed from the book at all and how much it should affect their enjoyment of it.

** Taken UpToEleven for British and Commonwealth readers, for whom the first book's oft-used term Bugger is a common mild and often humorous swearword ("bugger it", "bugger off", etc) – but which as a standalone verb means to anally penetrate.

* HarsherInHindsight: The book says that the French, in their "arrogant separatism", refuse to teach Standard (English) to their kids until they're older than is ideal. Nowadays, a large percentage of French people speak English and/or some other non-French language. Meanwhile, there are huge controversies in America, the author's country, over teaching non-English languages to children.

* HilariousInHindsight: Blogging being SeriousBusiness in ''Ender's Game'', enough to cause international tension. Hilarious because if politicians took half of actual political blogs seriously these days, we'd probably have had World War III by now.

** Everyone's shock at Ender killing the giant to win that part of the game hasn't aged well at all, with the massive rise in VideoGameCrueltyPotential. The movie actually ran into trouble here when it largely adapted the scene just as it was in the book despite this.

* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: Battle School is suppose to be horrible, and show the inhumane effects war can have on everyone to the point of training ChildSoldiers. But the training in Battle School that the book goes into much detail about sounds like zero gravity laser tag combined with CaptureTheFlag. And the Command School simulations sound like a really advanced RealTimeStrategy game. And in his off hours Ender gets to relax with a ([[SeinfeldIsUnfunny for the time]]) really advanced AdventureGame. It all sounds really fun, Ender's specific trauma notwithstanding.

* {{Narm}}: Soldiers treating it like such a big deal that Ender thinks outside the box while playing a video game. Sure, there are in-story reasons, but with video games becoming such an important part of childhood, and with so many types of video games out there (including those that encourage outside-the-box tactics), it feels silly that no one else ever thought of attacking the giant in the game. [[OlderThanTheyThink Yes, even in 1985]]: The first three games of the ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' series predate this book, and one of the series' {{Running Gag}}s is players finding various implausible ways to kill BigGood Lord British for much less InUniverse justification than the giant gave (so much so that [[LordBritishPostulate it named a trope]]).

* {{Narm}}: Soldiers treating it like such a big deal that Ender thinks outside the box while playing a video game. Sure, there are in-story reasons, but with video games becoming such an important part of childhood, and with so many types of video games out there (including those that encourage outside-the-box tactics), it feels silly that no one else ever thought of attacking the giant in the game.
** This can be justified in that the game's rules rewrite based on the player's mindset. So it's possible that others tried attacking the giant, but it turned out to be invulnerable; only [[FridgeHorror only Ender has enough of a killer instinct for the game to allow him to kill the giant]].

[[folder:Book]]

[[folder: For the book:]]

[[folder: For the film:]]

* MST3KMantra: Oh, come on. No one had tried any of these tactics and rule-bending? It's just a book... it's just a book...

* OlderThanTheyThink: "They're ripping off [[Franchise/{{Halo}} the training of the SPARTANs and the invading Covenant]]!" "The Formic spaceships [[Franchise/MassEffect look like Reapers]]!" "[[Franchise/HarryPotter Ender is a child messiah at a school for special children!]]" ''Ender's Game'' precedes ''Halo'', ''Mass Effect'', and ''Harry Potter'' by nearly 20 years (though admittedly, since this movie came out ''after'' Mass Effect, one could still make the "appearance rip off argument, but that's for another day).

* DeathOfTheAuthor: An odd example. Card's unapologetic statements on homosexuality have attracted a lot of controversy, but he's stated the book to not be about homosexuality in any way (instead pointing out that gay marriage was not a hot-button issue at the time the book was written). All the same, many readers attribute his beliefs to some aspects of the novel. Others believe the book could be applied to queer oppression due to its theme of being an outcast and attempting to function in a society where one doesn't fit in. In the midst of all this, readers argue if Card's own personal views can be removed from the book at all and how much it should effect their enjoyment of it.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Colonel Graff's reaction to the news that his years of formalized child abuse [[spoiler:- and the ApocalypseHow genocide that it led to - were all completely unnecessary must have been... interesting.]]

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Deliberate cruelty [[SchoolOfHardKnocks is the best form of education]].
** Love your enemies...so you can kill them more effectively.
*** Alternatively, "greater understanding of your foe enables you to beat them more effectively".
** Always fight dirty. Only arrogant bullies fight fair or show restraint.
*** And DisproportionateRetribution is admirable, as it acts as a deterrent to future conflict.
*** Except the first time he does this, it lands him in an even more abusive situation, the second time it actively breaks his mind, and the third time it results in the extinction of an entire species who Ender later learns was horrified by their own actions upon discovering that humanity was sapient, and had only been unable to express that horror because they lacked the ability to understand the concept of language.

* MagnificentBastard: Peter Wiggin, who finds opposition in a certain ManipulativeBastard.