Ender Questions

CHAPTER 12
Ender provoked Bonzo because Bonzo was the leader and the best and then Ender came and became the best through innovation.  Ender tricked the system and kept figuring new things up and then Bonzo became 2nd best.  I’m not surprised Bonzo got mad because it’s hard when you’ve been the best for so long and then some new person comes along and is better than you.  Bonzo started talking smack about Ender and then it became physical.

Stilson was the guy he killed when ender was still on earth.  Stilson was the leader of his bully group and Ender had to beat him up to prevent getting bullied again.  Ender was thinking about Stilson because it was pretty much the same situation with Bonzo.  Bonzo attacked and Ender had to end it to keep himself from getting hurt later.

Ender still expects help from the teachers because he thought they were their to prevent violence and monitor the situations.  And they are, but they don’t want to stunt his retaliatory nature, so he wouldn’t get hurt.  

I didn’t know Stilson and Bonzo we’re dead, but I do now because in the chapter is says  “...There was a death in the Battle School(pg 225) ”  This quote was talking about Bonzos death.  I now know that Stilson died on page 225-226 because they discuss Ender going to command school and they say this is the 2nd person they killed and it says they didn’t tell Ender that he killed Bonzo and that they didn’t tell him about Stilson either.  Then the people say, “At least the first one was a suicide.”  

Ender was justified because he was provoked.  He did what he had to do to get out of the situation.  Both times he was cornered and out numbered, so he took out the head of the group.  They don’t tell Ender he killed them because they don’t want Ender to limit his aggressiveness and  hold back because they're going to war and there’s no second place it’s either all or nothing.

CHAPTER 13
She means that you can be a person who believes in peace, but you can still go to war and get the job done.  For example Ender doesn’t want to go to war and fight and kill and hurt people, but he has to.  An example of this is like I don’t want to do my homework, but I have to if I want to succeed in life.

I wouldn’t say it’s a good instinct, but it’s one of those instincts that humans need to survive.  I’m not saying everybody has to kill someone to survive, but if you don’t kill anybody in war then you’re getting killed.  It’s a terrible thing that it has to be this way, but it is what it is.

The conversation Ender and Valentine had on the raft was that Ender was talking about how the leaders of the Command School are controlling him.  He’s a puppet.  Ender told her that they kept giving them harder and harder stuff because it’s a game.  “In the moment when I truly  understand my enemy I 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 loved themselves and then, in that very moment when I love them...”  Then Valentine says “you beat them?”
Then Ender says “No I destroy them.”  Then Ender say’s “See what i’m becoming? Now you afraid of me too.”  (PG 228) Ender understand that he’s the tool and that’s hes being used for a specific job that goes against who he really is.  Ender wanted to quiet but he didn’t because he knows there's a job to do and only he can do it.

Valentines conflicting thoughts about her brothers is that she loves them both, but they are two totally different people.  She doesn’t know how she get them to be together and put their differences behind them.

Graffs statement about why they need to go to war with the buggers is because the buggers initiated the war originally and so the humans will end it.  This relates to Enders problems with Stilson and Bonzo because Stilson and Bonzo put him in fear, so Ender had to stop that.  

CHAPTER 14
Eros bother Ender because they were small  and it makes it feel like the small rooms and floors are curved, so it makes Ender feel like he’s falling.  Also there were too many people for him.  Ender usually knew everybody, but here everybody was strangers.  He knew the faces, but not the personalities. The leaders their separated Ender from everybody, so all he had to do was study and play the game and not get attached to people.  Ender figures out the truth about eros because on page 269 they talk about the battle they had won and they say you can’t live here without knowing the truth.  Mazer told him that the buggers made this place.  That’s why the building are so small because buggers don’t need big ones. Then Ender knew he was living in a buggers hive.

Mazer is going to be the only teacher Ender has ever had because on page 276 he’s talking to Mazer and Mazer explains how he was just like Ender.  He was detached from his family and stuck at battle and command school and forced to teach and teach.  Mazer the only ones that been through it all and did it successfully, so it’s best to learn from the source.  Mazer is a primary source document if  you will.  

Mazer had been dishonest with Ender because Mazer didn’t tell ender that the super hard battle that Ender thought was a simulation was real.  Ender killed all the buggers including the queen thinking it was all fake, but Mazer didn’t tell him because Mazer thought Ender couldn’t do it.  I don’t think Ender could have handled the truth because Ender is still scared of becoming like Peter and committing genocide against the buggers would be far beyond what Peter did.

I don’t think they pushed the children to hard because it’s not a question to how you win, but if you win.  They did win so everything they did to the kids was worth it.  It was either a hard few years or death.  It was worth it because all the kids learned so much and so did Ender. Most importantly they didn't die and a day of life is worth everything.

I’m half and half on this. The humans felt scared and even though they killed so many of the buggers they felt safe again.  I don’t think they had to kill so many buggers to win the war.  They just had to prove to the buggers that they were stronger and that if they don’t back off then they are in trouble.  I don’t think the destruction of the buggers population was inevitable because Ender might have figured something out that would have stopped him from doing what he did.  And xenocide didn’t really happen because Ender was able to save them.

CHAPTER 15

I think Ender agrees with it, but I don’t think Ender believes that the people in charge of the battle school actually love him.  He knew they loved his brain but that’s all.  This quote would make more sense if Enders family needed him to do something for them.  I think this quote also relieves Ender from the stress.  The stress that makes him feel like a bad person and that he forced to be someone he doesn’t want to be.  It relieved him because he would realize that he’s not the only one that is in his shoes.

When Ender listens to the death of Stilson and Bonzo he feels bad, but he has killed so many buggers that the death of two more doesn't cross his mind. He feels so bad about what he did to the buggers that he can't be any more stressed then he already is. When I imagine Ender I think of a quite boy that can't get the images of the buggers and the queen dieing and he just sits and stairs as time passes.

Valentine Made sure that Ender would never return to earth because everybody there thinks he’s a monster.  The people on earth don’t understand that Ender had to and it was self defense.  I think all the people on earth are scared of Ender and if he went back he would just get some unwanted stares and rude remarks and questions.  Another thing is that if Ender went back to earth Peter still wouldn’t love him.  Peter would still be his old ways and maybe even worse because Peter would be jealous of how great Ender has become.  Also it would be better off if Ender remained a story and a name (pg 308)


It’s ironic for Valentine saying Peter saved a lot of lives because Peter also killed a lot of lives.  If it wasn’t for peter Ender wouldn’t be who he was.  Ender character is a mix of Peter’s and Valentin’s.  I don’t necessarily agree that Peter saved and killed a lot of lived because Peter did not directly kill or save.  It’s almost like saying my mom helped me write.  Ender has some personality in him that Peter and Valentine don’t have and I have some personality that only I have.

Give specific details.
The knowledge that Ender gained that allowed him to write The Hive Queen was that the buggers didn’t actually want to fight.  He also felt what they felt. Also it was sad because the Queen told Ender that she knew they would die because the  humans didn’t forgive them.  The the Queen told Ender that they didn’t know if they would be able to leave in peace with the humans, so they attacked to avoid future conflict.  “We are like you; the thought pressed in his mind.  We did not mean to murder, and when we understood, we never came again.”  This quote really touched Ender, because Ender didn’t want to kill either, but hey both felt like they had too, so they did.



Ender publishes the book using pseudonym and not his own name because
doesn’t care about the fame.  People also might not want to read the book if it had Ender Whiggen written on the title page.  He wants people to read it though because he believes it will make them a better person if they did.  My friend Ralf read this book and he told me that whenever he is at a funeral he always speaks like the speaker of the dead would.