Ender's Game Character Analysis

Ender's Game is the story of Ender Wiggin, a child genius chosen to save the world. Ender is intelligent, see the bigger picture, and fearless. In the novel Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, Ender is best described as someone that is omniscient . Ender shows his intelligence through his training, skills, and fast smart thinking in stressful situations throughout the novel. “I don't care if I pass your test, I don't care if I follow your rules. If you can cheat, so can I. I won't let you beat me unfairly - I'll beat you unfairly first. (Card 24)” Ender Wiggin is the indisputable hero of the story. He is the perfect man (boy) to lead the entire fleet. Ender’s very independent, strong, willed, mentally tough, creative, and mature. While Ender

shares the leadership abilities of his brother Peter, he is also sensitive and good hearted like her sister Valentine. The compassionate side of Ender is not what interests his military instructors, however. They manipulate Ender’s talent and try to forge him into a strong, ruthless leader.
Throughout Battle School Ender’s gets bullied because of his unique strategy in playing games.

Stilson, another kid at battle school trying to be better than everyone, always loses to Ender. Once Stilson sees his competition he wants revenge. He wants to get anyone who is better than him out of his way. Stilson gets his friends together and traps Ender in a science lab to get payback. Instead of simply deciding on a strategy to win this fight, he looks at the situation in a whole new light. Even though Ender is unprepared and outnumbered, he has the ability to quickly evaluate the situation and conclude that the interaction cannot have a happy ending. He chooses not to be the victim anymore. Ender engages Stilson, his school bully in a fight and to his surprise he is able to knock him to the ground. “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 78). Why does Ender continue to beat on someone who is no longer a threat? He knows that he must not only win this fight, but he must win all the next ones too. If he does not end this pattern of behavior, it will get increasingly worse, and he will face the same battles every

day.
During his formal training Ender is isolated and alone, and force to separate human emotions from his actions.

His experiences in Battle School are brutal and he is pushed to the limits of human endurance. The school teaches him to expect no help from anyone and that whatever he faces he must do alone. He learns military strategy by participating in battle room maneuvers. His genius in these maneuvers raises him to the top position in the intensely competitive games. He commands his own Army and is forced to face the most difficult of battle challenges. He wins battles after being hopelessly outnumbered, when the rules of battle are changed and he is physically and emotionally exhausted. After Ender wins battles a leader from another team is full of hate, jealously, and anger just as Stilson was. Bonzo was the leader of the team Salamander as Ender was a member of that team before he lead his own team Dragon. Bonzo confronts Ender and Ender uses his environment around him to win the fight. Although Bonzo hits his head and goes into critical condition. Enders view of this confrontation, and his ability to shift his paradigm from a position of weakness to a position of power ultimately saves his

life.
In the final battle, ignoring his losses, Ender decides to take radical action, as he is hopelessly outnumbered by buggers; he uses a molecular detachment device to destroy the Bugger planet and fleet. He is disgusted with this course of action but concludes it was the only course of action that could help him win the game. Ender, then to his horror finds out that there had been no games since he had started working with Mazer Rackham, the one who saved earth from the Aliens once before. He learns that he has just fought and won the third Bugger invasion. The military objectives left no room for human emotions, compassion, hesitation or weakness; the only priority was to win at any cost. The military believed that Ender had too much empathy and compassion to be a ruthless killer and that he could never go into real battle willing to win at any cost.
After five years of battle school Ender's experience and frame of reference was only these games; the real battle was never here and now, it was always discussed as a future event. This final battle is clearly the most significant paradigm shift in Ender's Game. Our life experiences and values shape who we are and how we see the world; this so often leads us to see the world as we are conditioned to see it. Even after five years Ender changes more than he ever thought he could. He’s done the undone and seen the unseen, and now the only thing left to do was to lead the entire fleet against the buggers. This is also the case with Ender when he is tricked into commanding the third Bugger invasion.