Ender Valentine Character Analysis

Does Ender have more of Valentine’s (a.k.a Val) personality or Peter’s? Ender Wiggin (a.k.a Andrew), the Third, has various different kinds of characteristics. From Peter’s ruthlessness to Valentine’s compassionism; Ender is a mixture of their personalities. However, Ender does have unique qualities that help him fight through the obstacles and manipulations the I.F. throws his way. Comparatively, Ender has more of Valentine’s personality, because if he didn’t, the I.F. would have never taken him into Battle School.
As stated earlier, Ender has more of Valentine’s personality for several reasons. Without compassion, Ender would end up just like Peter; completely ruthless and self-centered. If Ender would have acted for himself,like Peter; he would have never been able to save the world or enter Battle School. The I.F. “had to have a commander with so much empathy that he would think like a bugger, understood them like a perfect machine, as perfect as the buggers” (Card 298). Ender is whole-hearted, but he hides it behind all his seriousness. He is “sweeter than he looks” (Card 28).
Not only does Ender have compassion, but a couple characteristics that come from Peter and Valentine. Basically, Peter’s ruthlessness and Valentine’s compassion bind together to form Ender and his personality. However, Ender also has his own unique

qualities. One great example would be that Ender does not enjoy control and actually tries to avoid it. In addition, he does not enjoy manipulating people unless he knows that it’s for the benefit of everyone. He also does not like causing harm to anyone, and believes that conflicts should be solved without violence. After being tricked into killing all the buggers in the Third Invasion, Ender cries out: “I didn’t want to kill them all. I didn’t want to kill anyone! I’m not a killer!” (Card 297). On the contrary, Peter makes it clear that he enjoys being a killer, and even threatens Ender and Valentine. Peter even admits to Valentine in the beginning of the novel, “ ‘I’m going to kill you and chop you into little pieces and you into the garbage hole’ “ (Card 14).
Throughout the novel, Peter and Valentine display a variety of different kinds of characteristics. In particular, Peter is ruthless while Valentine is compassionate. Peter is also a manipulator, a sadistic bully, and a young brilliant man who acts only for himself. A good example of this would be when Locke (Peter), made a proposal that the government agreed on called the “Locke Proposal” (Card 303). At first, Valentine was too empathetic and didn’t enjoy harming people. However, with Peter’s influence, Val actually gains thirst for power caused Earth’s government to fall in shambles into Locke’s hand. In other words, Valentine believes that she is “more powerful” than Peter (Card 128). Her thirst of beating Peter eventually results in Ender’s isolation in Eros. For that reason, Ender wasn’t able to go back home to Earth.
In conclusion, it turned out that Peter, Valentine, and Ender don’t have much differences.

True or not, Ender still has more of Valentine’s personality. This is true because of all the evidence shown above, and the fact that Ender is more compassionate that ruthless. Besides, unlike Valentine, Ender never wanted to beat Peter. Ender just wanted Peter to love him like a normal brother would. Nevertheless, Ender will always have unique qualities that no one will be able to take from him; no even the buggers. Not to mention that his compassion, ruthlessness, and unique personalities caused Earth’s salvation, and a finding of a new

world.