Ender's Game, intentions and morality (spoilers)

[uss]

Here's a clever analysis of Orson Scott Card's award-winning book, Ender's Game.

It makes a few very nice points, especially regarding OSC's manipulation and evasion techniques (however consciously they were made).

From what I remember though, it is mentioned in various parts of the book that the Buggers function in complete unison, following only the whims of the hive queen: therefore, in committing xenocide, Ender actually kills one individual conscience.


In any case, it was a wonderful book.

[Luvian]

Yes it sure was. I don't have the time to read it your link now, but I'll try to get back to it.

There's one thing you got wrong thought. There are more than one queen. There is at least one per world (colony). And I remember the egg at the end telling how the queen that organized their society "filtered" her daughters to keep only those that were willing to work as a group.

The funny part is that Orson Scott Card only wrote this novel as filler to get to the real story he wanted to write, which happen to be the other novels, yet the first one is the one people are actually more interested in.

Personally, I think there were 2-3 weaknesses in the plot, I posted about them somewhere here and I'll see if I can dig it up.

[Thoran]

IMO the reason it's the most popular of his novels is because it's far and away the best of them. The 'sentient network' idea that he develops later on is very cool, but Ender's Game was one of those once in a career books. IMO he (likely without even knowing it) created something that transcended genre and became a must read in a broader sense.