Analysis Of Ender's Game By Orson Scott Card

When it comes down to it, it is every person for themselves. It could be an individual, country, or any species wanting to survive. They all must do what will benefit themselves. If that means that you have to hurt someone else’s wellbeing, then that is what has to happen. Surviving does not always mean we should go straight to murdering, but there are times that killing someone is what is best for one’s own survival. That is the same conflict that one character in Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, goes through. That character is Andrew Wiggin, also known as Ender. The book is about how Ender is going to learn to become one of the great commanders in the war with the Buggers. The Buggers are an enemy, alien race. As this process goes on, Ender

is haunted by his past. His older brother Peter Wiggin is a violent person. He likes to torture Ender, and also other people and even animals. Ender does not want to turn out to be like Peter, but throughout the book all the things that happen make Ender believe he is just like his brother. Ender Wiggin does however have some violent affectations just as Peter does. But Ender is different than Peter. Peter does all of his violent things for enjoyment, while Ender wants to protect the ones he loves.
At the beginning of the book, the reader finds out that Ender Wiggin is a third.

To be a third means that he is the third child the family has when government only allows each family to have two children. The society is based on each family having two kids. They accept that he was born in the first place because the government wanted them to have a third child. That really was a negative impact on their family. Ender’s classmates would pick on him by calling names such as “third”. They said other things such as: “Hey, Third, we’re talkin to you, Third, hey bugger-lover, we’re talking to you.” “Hey, Third, hey, turd, you flunked out, huh? Thought you were better than us, but you lost your little birdie, Thirdie, got a Band-Aid on your neck.” (Card 6). No matter what, they would pick on Ender constantly. Ender was born to be the absolute greatest commander of all time. He was just as clever as his brother and sister, Valentine. Peter was more violent than Ender, and Valentine was far more caring. So he was in the middle of both. He does not really take joy in killing, but if it means that he has to protect himself than he wants to make sure no one ever messes with him again. There was an example of that early in the book when he got picked on by a kid named Stilson. Ender gets held down by Stilson’s buddies, but says something clever to get them off. If Stilson would have beat him up like that, it would have made him look like a coward. Ender says “I have to win this now,

and for all time, or I’ll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse.” (Card 7). There are many other instances where he has happen throughout the book. It makes him however, to see himself more and more like the person he does not want to become, like his brother Peter.
Throughout the years that come and go, Ender is getting trained to become the best commander ever.

He is so highly skilled and intelligent at a very young age. He does many things that the kid’s, years older than him, just begin to do. He is so far ahead of really most of them there; that makes him their only hope. Ender gets sent to command school way before any other kid before him. He did but did not understand why he had to go. He knew he was good, but he was just a young kid. Ender goes through so much stuff at Battle School. He moves around from army to army. He is not very respected at the school because he is so young and it seems like jealousy. Deep down they all know, but no one wants to actually admit it. Ender gets moved, and moved, then he gets put in an army where he is commander. The army he gets to control was not there when he got to Battle School. They brought it back. Dragon Army was the army that he was in control of; that army really never won any battles. To make things “better”, “Ender gets other inexperienced, young kids. The people over the school want to see if he will fail. They give him a battle a day, which never happens. Then Ender gets two battles a day. He even has to face two armies at once. He prevails though, no matter what gets thrown at him and his army. He is sick and tired of Battle School. Then he gets tested one last time. Ender is told it is the last simulation before the real battle. That was the only way Mazer Rackham and the

other people would get Ender to actually do it. He does not want to be like his brother Peter, so if they told him it was the real thing the outcome could have been different. He might have been more preservative, giving the buggers more time. Ender did not want to kill the buggers; as he said to Mazer Rackham. He said “I didn’t want to kill them all. I didn’t want to kill anybody! I’m not a killer! You didn’t want me, you bastards, you wanted Peter, but you made me do it, you tricked me into it!” (Card 297-98). After it is all over, Ender feels guilty about destroying the bugger’s planet.