[ SECRET POST #3449 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3449 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 38 secrets from Secret Submission Post #493.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[ariakas]

I loved Ender's Game as a kid, but even back then I thought it was a little too convenient how the protagonist got to commit genocide and yet be utterly blameless.

Of course as a kid the term "neocon's wet dream" would have meant absolutely nothing to me.

[feotakahari]

Ender's Game worked for me because I felt like Card was intentionally undermining himself as much as he possibly could. Here's this character who believes in everything Card believes and tries to do what Card thinks is right, and here's how it repeatedly causes terrible things to happen. The reader actually has some leeway to evaluate whether Card's values are just. Compare his earlier book Treason, which has similar ideas but never allows room to question that the protagonist is doing the right thing by committing genocide. (In some ways, Ender's Game seems like Card's own counterargument against what he wrote in Treason.)

[(Anonymous)]

Ender didn't know he was committing genocide and did not want to do so. He was frustrated and committed the act in what he thought was a simulator to get out of the situation. I haven't read books past EG but I know that he went into mourning and penance for his actions.

Side note: I can respect OSCs contriubtions to SF and enjoy his work and still be keenly aware that he is a homophobe who is working against me. He has my respect for his work alone. He'll never get money from me. This is what libraries are for. ;)

[(Anonymous)]

That's a Watsonian explanation for Ender's actions, while ariakas was looking at them from a Doylist perspective. The question isn't "Does Ender demonstrate enough human decency to remain sympathetic?"; the question is "Why did OSC choose to use a sympathetic character to tell this particular story in this way?"

Compare to the often convoluted rationales given for female comics characters' suits like Starfire's. In universe, Starfire has to dress like that so she can absorb solar radiation and fly. In real life, her creators just really wanted to put her in a skimpy bikini.

So what does it say when OSC really wanted readers to sympathize/empathize with a character who blamelessly commits genocide?