Violence in Ender\'s Game Ender\'s

Violence in Ender's Game

Ender's Game, a science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card, takes place during a time of intergalactic and inter-species warfare. Mankind has been attacked by the alien buggers twice in the past, and the entire planet is involved in gearing up for the Third Invasion. Neither the story, nor the violence that is such a major part of it, begin with the bugger wars, however. Instead, the story begins with Ender, a six-year-old school child, and shows how violence is a part if his world, even as a normal (or somewhat normal-seeming) little boy. Part of Ender's philosophy includes seeing violence as a necessary evil in certain situations, and Card seems to share the same beliefs as those he puts into the minds and mouths of his characters. Ender, under Card's pen, has developed this aspect of his outlook on life out of necessity due to his upbringing as a Third (a third child to his parents, which requires a special allowance in the over-crowded future) and because of the monitor placed on him by the government, the removal of which at the beginning of the novel leaves Ender vulnerable to the more violent members of his class and to his brother, Peter. From the very beginning of the novel, Card makes his case ultimately violence is needed in certain situations by using the plot, characters, and even the symbolism of the story to put forth the argument in such a way that it is almost impossible to disagree with his claims.

The opening scene of the novel is itself violent though unintentional, and it sets up the potential for the true violence that occurs between Ender and Stilson at the school. The plot is set up with the removal of Ender's monitor, and the process almost kills him. The scene is described with Ender violently arching his make and the nurse screaming for the doctor, who enters sounding panicked himself. The violence in this scene is not exactly necessary, although it is a nice introduction to the themes of the novel and the necessary violence it does contain. First, the removal of the monitor opens up Ender to the violence of Stilson and his gang of followers. Though Ender doesn't want to fight, and ends up crying afterwards, he beats Stilson completely -- kills him, he later learns -- because he doesn't want to fight anymore and figures if he wins this one completely enough he won't have to face any others.

This scene is a microcosm of the larger themes of the play. Ender was wearing the monitor because it is thought -- and eventually proved -- that he may be capable of leading the world's star fleet against the bugger world and it's army. He ends up annihilating the entire species, and he himself questions whether this is really necessary. Before he realizes that this is the goal the adults commanders have planned for him, he and Colonel Graff have a conversation where Graff explains why sometimes violence is necessary: "If the other fellow can't tell you his story, you can never be sure he isn't trying to kill you...If one of us has to be destroyed, let's make damn sure we're the ones alive at the end" (Card, 253). This is the premise upon which the entire plot of the novel is bit, and his hard to argue against. Interestingly, this says that violence is only necessary because violence exists. That is, if no one was violent, no one else would have to use violence to protect themselves. In some ways, this is similar to Valentine's comment about Peter that power will always go to the people who want it (Card, 239). As long as there are people -- or other species -- willing to use violence against us, we must be willing to use violence back. No one would argue that someone shouldn't kill a bear that was attacking them or their family, and the plot of Ender's Game deals with the same situation on a planetary scale.

The plot of the novel contains perhaps the clearest example of the necessity of violence, but the plot could not happen without the individual characters that drive it forward. Many of the novels characters are actually pacifists, or seem like they would be in better circumstances, but in the world and time that they live in, they are required to be violent. Graff and even Major Anderson, though both admit to taking pleasure in their jobs, would probably be far more peaceful people if they weren't required to try and win this war and save humanity. As they repeatedly say, especially Graff, they are doing what they have to do, and although there may have been other tactics that would have worked, there was no way of knowing whether or not the human race could be saved without violent action against the buggers. The buggers themselves, though they do not really appear as character until the very end of the novel, in the dream they send to Ender on the new world, are actually stuck in the same bind as the humans. What the human experienced as violence in the First and Second invasions was not actually violence to the buggers -- they had no idea that they were killing sentient beings. They had tried to communicate with the humans, but because the two species communicate so differently, this was impossible. Violence became necessary for them to ensure their own survival, and although eventually they succeed in prolonging their species' viability by finding a way to communicate, this option is not available for most of the novel.

Other characters commit violence not because it is strictly necessary, but because of human psychology. Stilson is one of these characters; he uses violence as a way of taking and keeping power in the form of his group's admiration and obedience. Another character who is very similar to this -- and whose character arc is also very similar -- is Bonzo Madrid. Bonzo is violent because of his Spanish pride and really because of is insecurities. He is not a very good commander, and he knows it but he cannot admit. When Ender shows how much better and smarter he is than Bonzo, Bonzo can't handle it. It starts when Ender is put in his army and Bonzo loses a good soldier in the deal. Bonzo uses the incident to belittle Ender and makes his army stronger. This shows the group-strengthening dynamic that focused violence can have -- something it is also necessary to use in real warfare, outside the battleroom and even outside the ages of this novel. Ender is forced to be violent towards Bonzo because of Bonzo's violence towards him, but Bonzo's motives are simply jealousy and pride. This is typical of male violence; it usually does not come purely from anger, but from a need to prove oneself better than another. In the scene between Ender and Bonzo where the two fight in the showers, Dink Meeker shows up and tells Bonzo not to do it because Ender is the best chance they have against the buggers. Ender, who understands the way Bonzo feels, thinks, "You've killed me with those words, Dink" (Card, 210). He knows that Bonzo's violence will only be stronger the more Ender appears better than him. In the fight, Ender ends up killing Bonzo -- though again he doesn't know it right away -- and again, he cries immediately afterwards. Ender is not the type of character who enjoys violence, but only uses it to protect himself.