Ender's Game Questions Chapters 12-15

Chapter 12
1. Ender provoked Bonzo by bringing up the weak points in his emotions. He started talking about his dad, and his honor, and it made Bonzo angry. Ender says: "You can go home and tell your father, Yes, I beat up Ender Wiggin, who was barely ten years old, and I was thirteen" (208-9). Ender knows that because of Bonzo's Spanish heritage and upbringing makes him very proud, and uses that against him. Bonzo responds by trying to make the fight fair, but he is still angry and has a lot of pent up aggression towards Ender so it does turn bloody.

2. Stilson was Ender's bully and tormenter at school before he came to Battle School. Ender was thinking of him because he had a big fight with Stilson where he ended up hurting very badly, just as he did with Bonzo. Little does Ender know that he killed both of them.

3. Ender still expects help from the teachers because he thinks he is too good for them to risk losing. He knows they believe he is their only hope, so he thinks they won't let anyone hurt him. When he wakes scared in the night he comforts himself with this idea.

4. I knew Stilson and Bonzo were dead, but only after the adults actually said it at the end of the chapter. A clue before that could have been how it says "...just that dead, stupid look on his face, that terrible look, the way Stilson looked when I finished with him" (212). Ender realizes that there is a very empty look that Bonzo and Stilson shared. Also, there is the way that Bonzo was sent to his hometown instead of moving on to another school, like a student of his level should have. And when the adults talk one says "They didn't tell him about Stilson, either" (226). That implies there was something very bad to be told, and before that they talk about a death in the school.

5. I think Ender was justified because his opponents would have done the same to him given the opportunity. He did not really mean to kill them, he was just a very good fighter. The adults did not tell him about the deaths because they knew it would break him. If he found out, he would have thought he was becoming Peter, and he already had a lot of problems with what he did to the boys without knowing how bad it really was. The adults needed him to have some guilt, but not an overwhelming amount.

Chapter 13
1. This quote is saying how when you act like something for long enough it will become part of you. After a lot of acting, it can be hard to distinguish between you and the character. For example, if you wear a certain type of clothes for a while trying to fit in with what everyone else is wearing, eventually you will come to like the clothes yourself and may gravitate toward them. Valentine writes like Demosthenes so much that her school assignments sound like it and she is almost discovered.

2. I think it is a good natural instinct for humans to kill. Humans are only animals, and animals don't hesitate to hurt others if it is in their best interest. Survival of the fittest is necessary for species to evolve and grow in a positive way. Without it, we may still be apes. In the book, it is Ender's natural instinct to protect himself against dangers such as Bonzo and Stilson, and those instincts win out when he ends up killing them. His instinct won out when he fought Bonzo in the bathroom because he had to make sure he was the fittest.

3. The conversation between Ender and Valentine on the raft is very deep. Ender talks about his problems, and Valentine talks about her new found political strength. I think they both benefited from that conversation because they could see deep into each other like they used to when life was simple as little children. Ender reveals that he hates himself because he strikes his enemies down by understanding them and approving of them. "Killing them with kindness" so to speak, except that he does not let them see the kindness. He sees his enemies soul and accepts and appreciates that soul. He does this with Bonzo by seeing his family relationships and honor and pointing them out to make Bonzo mad and vulnerable. Ender also says his soft spot, which is how Peter will always be able to control him and strike him down.

4. Valentine has mixed up feelings about her brothers because they are linked to her in confusing ways. Ender used to have a great relationship with her, because it was them against Peter who she was linked to, but more icily and distantly. However, when Ender left the spots switched and she started to have a stronger relationship with Peter. Ender was gone for so long that they grew apart and Ender's personality changed, with him growing a hard emotional shell. Valentine sees that all three of them share similar traits, and how they all need power and people to control around them. She loves Ender, but their is the distance because of the time he was gone in their childhood. She thinks she can control Peter, but at the same time she is afraid of him and what he might do. However, she spends much more time with him now than Ender.

5. To me, the reasons Graff gives for the bugger wars seem like the reasons for many problems. It boils down to religion, wanting space, not thinking the other side knows what they are doing, and thinking the other side is too forceful or violent. All of these things that relate to the buggers relate to real wars. World War II was because Hitler was being too violent because of religion. The whole book relates to real issues.

Chapter 14
1.Ender doesn't like the feeling of Eros. It disturbs him because he feels like it is unnatural to be there, like people don't fit. It turns out he is right, because when he asks about Eros Mazer Rackham tells him that Eros was set up and made livable by the buggers, so it makes sense that humans would not fit there.

2. Mazer is going to be the only teacher Ender ever had because he is the only teacher that has valuable experience and that Ender can learn a lot from. He is Ender's only teacher who is smarter than him and better than him, and he fought the buggers first hand. Mazer also acknowledges that he is the enemy. Ender's other teachers try to tell Ender that he is fighting against his peers, but Mazer is honest. When they fight "his face and shoulders were being pressed into the floor by the old man's knee, while his back was excruciatingly bent and his legs were pinioned by the old man's arm" (262). Mazer is physically and mentally stronger than him.

3. Mazer was dishonest with Ender about him fighting real buggers because he knew that Ender had too much empathy for others and could not succeed if he knew the truth. Ender always feels about when he hurts other people, so if he knew he was killing people he wouldn't do it. Ender couldn't have have handled knowing because he wouldn't have been able to do the right things and make the risky decisions. He would have compared himself to Peter and given up.

4. I think that the adults have pushed the child commanders too far, but it was worth it. Ender has always been sad, but he does snap in a way as his training continues and after he wins. He is not completely broken, but he will always have issues. It was worth it though, because if they hadn't done so they would have charged into battle against the buggers without good leaders. If they had done that the human race would have lost and been wiped out.

5. Xenocide is never justified. I can understand a war to establish who is the dominant race, but a complete extermination of a species is never a good thing. However, I think that the buggers' genocide was inevitable because all of the captains and government officials in Ender's world seem incredibly paranoid; their minds were set on beating the buggers once and for all. Plus, as Graff informs Ender, "We are the Third Invasion" (250). They sent battle ships years ahead of time so they now have to deal with the fighting those ships will start. As Graff later says, "So if we can we'll kill every last one of the buggers, and if they can they'll kill every last one of us" (254). All of the people are waiting to be attacked, so they just go ahead and get it over with. This is natural selection; the triumphant race will survive, the other will end.

Chapter 15
1. I think Ender would agree with Valentine's statement because it is how his own life has worked out in many ways. The adults in Ender's life all control what he does and how his life will go, and for the most part he lives with that, but he has put good people in the positions of his life. He has Graff and Mazer Rackham as mentors, he has Alai and Petra and others as friends, and he has Valentine for family. The rest of his family is not ideal, but he can compensate for that. When Alai said "salaam" to Ender, he knew he had found someone he could trust, and that is good for him.

2. Ender's opinion about Stilson's and Bonzo's death is that it is bad that they died, but it doesn't matter all that much because of how many other creatures he killed with the bugger xenocide. As he thinks, "All his crimes weighed heavily on him, the deaths of Stilson and Bonzo no heavier and no lighter than the rest" (309). He has reached an indifference of the bad things he does to others because of how many bad things he has done.

3. Valentine made sure Ender could never return to earth because she wanted to protect him from becoming another piece in Peter's game. Peter's success got so huge that he had the ability to feed off of Ender's success and use it to help him, and Valentine doesn't want that because she is still wary of what Peter may or may not do given the opportunity.

4. Many things are ironic about Valentine's statement that Peter saved millions of lives. First of all, there is the fact that he used to live for hurting others, such as when he would mutilate the squirrels. His early childhood was devoted to hurting lives, not helping them. Secondly, there is the fact that Ender did so much harm to others' lives when he defeated the buggers. The roles have been reversed.

5. Ender gets his information for The Hive-Queen from the things he sees through the bugger pupa he finds. Through it he sees things such as the wars through the buggers perspective, and how the buggers want Ender to help their baby queen remake their world. He learns of their innocence. As he realizes they thought "We did not mean to murder, and when we understood, we never came again" (321). When he sees all of this, he knows he must let the world see as well.

6. Ender called himself Speaker for the Dead because he wants to be out of the limelight and he thinks people will read it differently if they knew it was by him, who had killed all of the buggers. He has had enough of the spotlight and wants people to know the truth without him having to be involved. Also, it is like how we did not know about Orson Scott Card's views against gay marriage when we read Ender's Game, and it was better that way because we could read it without judging the book based on its author.