Ender's Game
The book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is one of the most influential science fiction books of our time. It predicted many things and gives some interesting social commentary. A bit of a psychological thriller set on a space station seems like a book right up my alley, and it most definitely is. This is probably one of the best books I've read. I'm honestly surprised it took them 28 years to adapt it into a movie.
It isn't a particularly straightforward narrative, and I'll talk a little bit about this later, but I'm going to make an attempt at a plot summary without any spoilers.
So, Ender Wiggin is 6 years old when commander Graff of the International Fleet drags him off to be trained for military action on a space station. The planet is at war with an alien race called the "Buggers" and Ender is going to be be an epic military commander and save everybody. Meanwhile Ender's siblings Valentine and Peter attempt to take over the world by pretending to be adults on political debate forums.
This was a thought provoking read. The ultimate message is that violence is bad and everybody should just work together and get along, but the way that the reader gets to that moral is twisty and disturbing. The book covers PTSD, sympathy, empathy, suicidal thoughts, accidental death, Anti-Social Personality disorder, and the loss of innocence. And all of this happens to a child! This is some pretty heavy stuff. Ender Wiggin comes out the book stupendously traumatized and you really feel sorry for the kid.
Thanks to the 3rd person limited perspective from which the novel is written, the reader empathizes with Ender. We get inside his head while still being a separate entity, able to analyze his choices and see from his point of view, while not being an active participant in the story. Ender Wiggin is a developed character and archetype. I'm not saying it's impossible to relate to Ender, but I am saying we get a more in-depth analysis of what is happening to Ender than we would get with an omniscient narrator.
The perspective of a book and the perspective of a video game is very functionally similar, so it makes a good simile for explaining perspective to people. The Hunger Games is 1st person present and is accordingly similar to games like Minecraft or Halo in terms of mechanic and involvement in the story. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a 3rd person omnipitent) is like fighting games like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. Ender's Game is similar to The Legend of Zelda or Sonic the Hedgehog. The player only ever plays as one character and they never literally see from the characters perspective, you're only controlling them. The reader only ever reads from one characters perspective in a certain scenario, but they are never put into the character's shoes.
There is investment in the story, but not so much investment that the audience is participating directly.
Despite the gigantic triumph this book had with the perspective, the book does seem unfocused. I think it's because of Valentine and Peter's subplot with the debate forum thing. The book seems like it's trying to cram as many ideas into itself as it can, and accordingly seems more like A Wrinkle in Time than it does it's own film adaptation. The film focuses on Ender, drastically shortens the story and makes a dramatic narrative, the book is much more of an idea story, having an unfocused narrative that serves as an info dump for societal and scientific commentary. I have no problem with this, but it makes the big massive twist at the end seem a bit less important. And when you make something as serious as what happens at the end of this book seem unimportant, you did something wrong.
Come to think of it, this happens a lot in stories written by Mormons for some reason. I wonder if there's a connection there.
Ender's story itself has no problems narratively, though I am at a loss to compare it to something. I need to applaud that because the story follows the hero's journey up to a point, and then turns into a Gothic horror story in terms of structure. We have the call, refusal, crossing of the threshold, and then the road of trials. At that point the book deviates, having Ender utterly fail the ordeal, lose the ultimate boon and finishing the story not with a heroic return, but by failing to atone for his sins and continuing the journey in order to do so. Ender's story perfectly follows the hero's journey, but looking at it through the correct theme, Ender absolutely fails in everything that he does.
This is why it's hard to compare this novel to anything else. This novel has a hero's journey, executed very well, but the protagonist actually exits the narrative weaker than when he entered it. My best comparison is to the book Stuart Little, which you would probably get if you've read both of these, but this is probably the most uniquely structured book I've read.
But all of my complaints are shoved aside by this quote:
“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, 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 love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them... I destroy them.”
This is the take-away line of the novel. Breaking into Card's Mormony subtext, this quote is the reason the bible says to love your enemies. Once you love them, you don't want to hurt them, which is exactly what happened to Ender. People say that this book has no religious over tones and I went out of my way to prove them wrong, but this is the moral of the story essentially. This is the reason that military commanders historically are either suicidal jerks or try to include conquered people into the system. Admittedly, it isn't the truest statement, but it does hold some truth to it. Couple this up with that bit of advice Polonius says in the beginning of Hamlet and the world's problems are immediately solved. It's no Andrew Ryan, but it is certainly the most memorable scene from the book. At least for me.
I would recommend this novel to fans of the Bioshock games. A bit less specifically, you aren't going to enjoy this novel if your favorite TV show is the most recent Ben 10 incarnation, but if you're looking for a subtle existential scare, and like science fiction, this is definitely the book you should read.
Thank you, enjoy the rest of your day.
It isn't a particularly straightforward narrative, and I'll talk a little bit about this later, but I'm going to make an attempt at a plot summary without any spoilers.
So, Ender Wiggin is 6 years old when commander Graff of the International Fleet drags him off to be trained for military action on a space station. The planet is at war with an alien race called the "Buggers" and Ender is going to be be an epic military commander and save everybody. Meanwhile Ender's siblings Valentine and Peter attempt to take over the world by pretending to be adults on political debate forums.
This was a thought provoking read. The ultimate message is that violence is bad and everybody should just work together and get along, but the way that the reader gets to that moral is twisty and disturbing. The book covers PTSD, sympathy, empathy, suicidal thoughts, accidental death, Anti-Social Personality disorder, and the loss of innocence. And all of this happens to a child! This is some pretty heavy stuff. Ender Wiggin comes out the book stupendously traumatized and you really feel sorry for the kid.
Thanks to the 3rd person limited perspective from which the novel is written, the reader empathizes with Ender. We get inside his head while still being a separate entity, able to analyze his choices and see from his point of view, while not being an active participant in the story. Ender Wiggin is a developed character and archetype. I'm not saying it's impossible to relate to Ender, but I am saying we get a more in-depth analysis of what is happening to Ender than we would get with an omniscient narrator.
The perspective of a book and the perspective of a video game is very functionally similar, so it makes a good simile for explaining perspective to people. The Hunger Games is 1st person present and is accordingly similar to games like Minecraft or Halo in terms of mechanic and involvement in the story. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a 3rd person omnipitent) is like fighting games like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. Ender's Game is similar to The Legend of Zelda or Sonic the Hedgehog. The player only ever plays as one character and they never literally see from the characters perspective, you're only controlling them. The reader only ever reads from one characters perspective in a certain scenario, but they are never put into the character's shoes.
There is investment in the story, but not so much investment that the audience is participating directly.
Despite the gigantic triumph this book had with the perspective, the book does seem unfocused. I think it's because of Valentine and Peter's subplot with the debate forum thing. The book seems like it's trying to cram as many ideas into itself as it can, and accordingly seems more like A Wrinkle in Time than it does it's own film adaptation. The film focuses on Ender, drastically shortens the story and makes a dramatic narrative, the book is much more of an idea story, having an unfocused narrative that serves as an info dump for societal and scientific commentary. I have no problem with this, but it makes the big massive twist at the end seem a bit less important. And when you make something as serious as what happens at the end of this book seem unimportant, you did something wrong.
Come to think of it, this happens a lot in stories written by Mormons for some reason. I wonder if there's a connection there.
Ender's story itself has no problems narratively, though I am at a loss to compare it to something. I need to applaud that because the story follows the hero's journey up to a point, and then turns into a Gothic horror story in terms of structure. We have the call, refusal, crossing of the threshold, and then the road of trials. At that point the book deviates, having Ender utterly fail the ordeal, lose the ultimate boon and finishing the story not with a heroic return, but by failing to atone for his sins and continuing the journey in order to do so. Ender's story perfectly follows the hero's journey, but looking at it through the correct theme, Ender absolutely fails in everything that he does.
This is why it's hard to compare this novel to anything else. This novel has a hero's journey, executed very well, but the protagonist actually exits the narrative weaker than when he entered it. My best comparison is to the book Stuart Little, which you would probably get if you've read both of these, but this is probably the most uniquely structured book I've read.
But all of my complaints are shoved aside by this quote:
“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, 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 love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them... I destroy them.”
This is the take-away line of the novel. Breaking into Card's Mormony subtext, this quote is the reason the bible says to love your enemies. Once you love them, you don't want to hurt them, which is exactly what happened to Ender. People say that this book has no religious over tones and I went out of my way to prove them wrong, but this is the moral of the story essentially. This is the reason that military commanders historically are either suicidal jerks or try to include conquered people into the system. Admittedly, it isn't the truest statement, but it does hold some truth to it. Couple this up with that bit of advice Polonius says in the beginning of Hamlet and the world's problems are immediately solved. It's no Andrew Ryan, but it is certainly the most memorable scene from the book. At least for me.
I would recommend this novel to fans of the Bioshock games. A bit less specifically, you aren't going to enjoy this novel if your favorite TV show is the most recent Ben 10 incarnation, but if you're looking for a subtle existential scare, and like science fiction, this is definitely the book you should read.
Thank you, enjoy the rest of your day.