Lying is justifiable if it's for the greater good.
I agree with this because telling a white lie to protect someone or to keep a secret is the right thing to do. but lying for your benefit isn't. The teacher's lied to Ender to protect him. They didn't tell him about how he killed Stilson and Bonzo right away so that he wouldn't be so stressed out.
This was good because he was able to continue in battle school without all that weight of the deaths hanging over his head.
Sometimes violence is the only way to solve a problem
Fighting might make the problem seem like it's gone but really beating people or hurting them isn't doing anything but putting someone in more pain than they already might have been in. Talking it out first is the best thing to do. But in Ender's case, when Bonzo threatened him, words weren't going to be his weapon so they fought it out. This didn't really solve anything because Bonzo was killed, but it did end the fight.
It is okay to kill someone in self-defense.
I think if someone feels threatened by someone else, and their life means everything to them, then yeah I sort of agree with this. They should try to get help from someone else so that they could try to get away from the killing aspect of everything. Trying to defend yourself and killing someone while doing that is extreme and you have to know when it's okay. Ender killed Stilson and Bonzo while trying to protect himself. I don't really think he meant to, he just wanted to show them who was boss.
Words are stronger than fists.
I still and I think I always will agree with this because it is pretty true. I haven't really been wounded by anyone but I have mentally. Some things stay in your mind forever while a bruise only lasts a week. But in the book, most people are beaten and hurt physically which doesn't really support my case. Ender doesn't ever really sovle a problem through words in the book, it's always through a battle. In
Bullies hurt others because they have low self esteem.
Not necessarily. This is true a lot of the time but some kids that are bullies have other "reasons" I guess there is no real "reason" that you should bully someone, but bullies say they have their excuses and reasons. Maybe they have a hard home life and they need to take their anger out. But people like Bonzo, who had a lot of Spanish honor and self-esteem because of it was still a bully to Ender.
Only the best and brightest students should receive the best education to become a nation's leaders.
I think that the brightest students might go on to complete more, but that doesn't mean that the kids who aren't as smart can't accomplish as much. Maybe grades are super important to some people, but I would rather be known as a person that has more people skills and knows how to interact with people than a 4.0. In Ender's game, all the students at the battle school are really smart but Ender is the smartest. He was, in this case, the best person to lead the bugger war, partly because of his intelligence and partly because of his people skills. i think a good balance of both is good.
Revenge is never justified
I still think that when the revenge actually hurts or kills someone, then it's not justifiable. But basically, all other revenge makes things interesting. In Ender's game though, when the human army is getting somewhat of a revenge, they kill all of the buggers off. Then Ender finds the baby bugger queen and takes her somewhere that she can thrive. This justifies killing all the buggers because he is helping the next generation of buggers live.
Crying is evidence of weakness.
I don't nessecarily think this because crying really helps to just let things that are building up inside of you go. Ender never crys when he gets hurt, he just cries when he is homesick. He doesn't want to show it though, because at Battle school it is considered weakness and being a baby. Sometimes, you just have to just suck it up and go on when there's nothing else you can really do. But other times you just need to let everything go with a good cry. So I'm in the middle with this one.
Any action is acceptable in war.
I think this is pretty true now that I've read the book. So many crazy things happened that were all justifiable because it was war, the only thing I would say was unjustified was the fact that the entire bugger population was killed. This was an accident, but it was still something that shouldn't have been done in the first place, war or not.
Teenagers need discipline and rules because they can't control themselves
Obviously being a teenager is going to make me disagree with this one a little. Teenagers can be a lot smarter than everyone thinks. Teens who can fend for themselves for a while or show that they're responsible and don't need as many guidelines, as say, a teen who's failing school or completly deaf to anything their parents have to say. Yeah, we should listen to our parents when they tell us stuff, but a lot of the time we don't just cause we're at that age. Ender was so young when he joined battle school and he didn't really need anyone to take care of him because he acted so responsible for all his actions. But the average 9 year old would be A LOT more crazy and wild, which is expected. As he grows up, he stays well put together and mature. This book is from a futuristic time so it doesn't have much affect on the way I thought about this question.
Only through personal sacrifice can someone create positive change.
Throughout history, people have done things to make a point in the world. Sometimes the things they do aren't things that will benefit them, but be good for others. In Ender's game, Ender had his childhood taken away by battle school, but this ended up leading to him winning the bugger war. But is war "positive change?" What makes it "positive change" if the entire bugger race was killed? Sappy as it sounds, I think if you can make one person's day, then you are improving the world. Because as small as you might seem, you can make a dfference by doing something good.
Generating compassion for your enemies is the only way to create peace.
I think that doing this is sometimes a way for your enimies to feel like everything they do to you won't affect you like they want. But when you're in Enders situation, kissing up to people isn't going to get him anywhere because of his situation. Ender has to battle out every problem he comes accross which only makes it worse. I think in some circumstances it works, but in war, it's not going to work.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Friday, March 1, 2013
Ender's Games questions Chapters 12-15
Chapter 12:
1. Bonzo was provoked by Ender because he beat Salamander Army. Bonzo was jealous of him because he was so good at everything and even though he was younger, he knew a lot more. Ender was also making fun of his Spanish honor. This resulted in the fight in the shower. Ender was cleaning up after a long day of battles when he reached for his towel but it wasn't there. He realized that a bunch of older boys had taken it, and Bonzo was their leader. They ended up fighting and Ender won by giving him a bloody nose and kicking him hard in the crotch.
2. Stilson was a bully in Ender's elementary school. They had gotten in a fight at school in the very first chapter. Ender was thinking of him because the fight with Bonzo in the shower reminded him of the fight with Stilson. Both Bonzo and Stilson were bigger and Ender still brought them down hard and defeated them. He actaully ended up killing them both but didn't find out until later.
3. Even though Ender is the best in the school, and amazing for his age, it's called battle SCHOOL for a reason. Teachers are there to teach you the things you need to learn and help you along the way. Ender still is young, even though it barley shows anymore. The teachers should have realized that. Just because someone doesn't show the feeling of being a kid doesn't mean it's not there somewhere inside him.
4. When the teachers are talking on page 226, one of them says they did have the good sense to tell Ender that the boy died." And then they say: "they didn't tell him about Stilson either" Ender knew he beat him up but know it was obvious to the reader that he actually did.
5. Ender was justified by the teachers. They say; " Ender Wiggin isn't a killer. He just wins-thoroughly." I think they didn't tell Ender about the deaths because he was doing so well in battle school and telling him the people he beat up actually got killed would scare him. Having that burden of knowing you killed someone, even if it was someone you didn't like, would be so much pressure on him. He was already going through so much in school and this might make him just break down.
Chapter 13:
1. This quote is saying that maybe you can't act like someone you're not without really taking on the role in real life. This relates to how Valentine and Peter pretend to be Demonesthes and Locke.
2. I think to a certain extent it is good to know how to be powerful. I guess most people would say humans are the supirior race to all other things on Earth. Being "killers" is something that we have done for years and years. We learned to kill our own food, but don't animals do that too? We know self -defense stratigies, but don't animals do that too? We know how to survive in different situations, but don't animals know how to do that too? We aren't just "killers". A lot of other species are too if this is the logic.
3. Ender and Valentine talked about the bugger war and what would happen in it. They talk about Ender growing up. Valentine talks about Demonsthenes and Locke. Ender reveals that he is kind of scrared to go on because his strenghth is so powerful and he doesn't want to hurt his enemies anymore.
He thinks this about everyone except Peter and the Buggers. He thinks that they will be more powerful. He says he wants to be loved by Peter, because after all, they are brothers. This conversation was very detailed and went into a lot of depth.
4. Valentine's feelings for Ender and Peter have changed a lot over the years. She has always loved Ender but since he has been away so long, they have grown apart. They used to have such a tight bond but Battle School hasnn't let it continue. Peter and Valentine have been hanging out a lot more together, doing Locke and Demonthenes as a project together and they just have been talking and having lots of converastions. Valentine has seen what Peter has done in the past and she is still skeptical.
5. I think Graff underestimates the Buggers. He thinks that just because they have Ender that everything will all turn out well. He says that their ways of communicating are off, that they don't know what's coming until it's already there and that with Ender, they can win it. He seems like he wants the Bugger war to happen almost for other reasons though, like having a new planet to be on. Maybe that's just me but that's what I think.
Chapter 14:
1. Ender is wary about Eros and he says it's because; "I thought the Buggers burned that into a ractioactive-ah." He doesn't finish his sentence in my perspective because he is just frightened. Eros is where the buggers will be, where anything could go down, where Buggers had colonized before. He is uneasy because it feels sketchy to be there in the presence of past buggers.
2. Ender caught on fast and was soon better than all the teachers he ever had at the battle school. Mazer actually won the bugger war and he is much stronger than Ender so he can actually teach him things that no one elso can. He can tell him specific things about the planet and the buggers, battle strategies, and how the buggers stratagies might work. The other teachers just kind of taught him small things but just let him do his own thing from there on.
3. Mazer didn't tell him the truth because he knew that if he did know about how the bugger war really went down, that Ender would be very hesitant and scrared. He wasn't telling him that when he sends troops somewhere, their lives are going to be taken. if Ender knew that, he would feel guilty and not want to fight.
4. I think that any kid shouldn't be pushed too hard even if they are really talented. They were pushed a little too far in Battle school and possibly a little when Ender trained them on Eros. I think that even though it was tough, they pulled it off well and winning the Bugger war was worth all the time and effort that they had put into training.
5. I don't think that killing of the entire race of buggers was justified even if they were the enemy. Survival of the fittest was taken a little too far. Killing the buggers that were looking like they were going to be a threatening would have been a better method for the war. The bugger's took lives but they didn't kill everyone. I see how humans wanted to prove that they are way more powerful than the buggers but that was just too extensive.
Chapter 15:
1. I think he would agree with what Valentine said but not all of it. I think Ender would rather just be himself, but every role he has been put into hasn't really been all that bad. He gets all the accomidations he needs to survive and people there to support him. Being made to be someone you aren't/don't want to nessecaily be must be hard and I think Ender is getting tired of having to be placed as someone rather than just working the way he usually would.
2. Ender doesn't like the fact that he killed Stilson and Bonzo. It hurt him. But that pain was made more mild after he killed millions and millions of bugger's and Stilson and Bonzo just became part of that number. Ender says he didn't mean to kill all the buggers, he just wanted to kill the ones that were in his way and the ones that were actually going to attack. He has a heavy load of guilt that he carries around, but he is almost numb to Stilson and Bonzo after all the bugger killings.
3. Valentine doesn't want Ender to see Peter. He has kind of taken over with his powerful ways and she doens't want Ender getting sucked into his world. She doesn't want him to become Peter or even the slightest but like Peter. She loves Ender and wants to protect him from what Peter might do if he goes back to Earth.
4. When Ender and Peter were children, Peter was always the killer, the fighter and the trouble maker. Ender was mostly always trying to do good and have everything be peaceful. But now the tables have turned kind of. Peter is the "lifesaver" of tons of people and Ender is off killing all the buggers.
5. Ender gains knowledege about the buggers through their actions in the bugger war. I think the book is in perspective of the bugger's so that people would see how the buggers think and all they really want to do is defend themselves and protect their queen. When he finds the queen baby, he knows it's his job where it could be raised in peace. Ender had killed all of the buggers and it was almost like his duty to restart their population again.
6. Ender goes as Speaker of the Dead when he writes his books rather than Ender or Andrew Wiggin because he doesn't want to be more known than he already is. He doesn't want people to know he wrote it. This relates to how people are debating keeping Card out of the limelight so when the movie comes out people won't know that he wrote it.
1. Bonzo was provoked by Ender because he beat Salamander Army. Bonzo was jealous of him because he was so good at everything and even though he was younger, he knew a lot more. Ender was also making fun of his Spanish honor. This resulted in the fight in the shower. Ender was cleaning up after a long day of battles when he reached for his towel but it wasn't there. He realized that a bunch of older boys had taken it, and Bonzo was their leader. They ended up fighting and Ender won by giving him a bloody nose and kicking him hard in the crotch.
2. Stilson was a bully in Ender's elementary school. They had gotten in a fight at school in the very first chapter. Ender was thinking of him because the fight with Bonzo in the shower reminded him of the fight with Stilson. Both Bonzo and Stilson were bigger and Ender still brought them down hard and defeated them. He actaully ended up killing them both but didn't find out until later.
3. Even though Ender is the best in the school, and amazing for his age, it's called battle SCHOOL for a reason. Teachers are there to teach you the things you need to learn and help you along the way. Ender still is young, even though it barley shows anymore. The teachers should have realized that. Just because someone doesn't show the feeling of being a kid doesn't mean it's not there somewhere inside him.
4. When the teachers are talking on page 226, one of them says they did have the good sense to tell Ender that the boy died." And then they say: "they didn't tell him about Stilson either" Ender knew he beat him up but know it was obvious to the reader that he actually did.
5. Ender was justified by the teachers. They say; " Ender Wiggin isn't a killer. He just wins-thoroughly." I think they didn't tell Ender about the deaths because he was doing so well in battle school and telling him the people he beat up actually got killed would scare him. Having that burden of knowing you killed someone, even if it was someone you didn't like, would be so much pressure on him. He was already going through so much in school and this might make him just break down.
Chapter 13:
1. This quote is saying that maybe you can't act like someone you're not without really taking on the role in real life. This relates to how Valentine and Peter pretend to be Demonesthes and Locke.
2. I think to a certain extent it is good to know how to be powerful. I guess most people would say humans are the supirior race to all other things on Earth. Being "killers" is something that we have done for years and years. We learned to kill our own food, but don't animals do that too? We know self -defense stratigies, but don't animals do that too? We know how to survive in different situations, but don't animals know how to do that too? We aren't just "killers". A lot of other species are too if this is the logic.
3. Ender and Valentine talked about the bugger war and what would happen in it. They talk about Ender growing up. Valentine talks about Demonsthenes and Locke. Ender reveals that he is kind of scrared to go on because his strenghth is so powerful and he doesn't want to hurt his enemies anymore.
He thinks this about everyone except Peter and the Buggers. He thinks that they will be more powerful. He says he wants to be loved by Peter, because after all, they are brothers. This conversation was very detailed and went into a lot of depth.
4. Valentine's feelings for Ender and Peter have changed a lot over the years. She has always loved Ender but since he has been away so long, they have grown apart. They used to have such a tight bond but Battle School hasnn't let it continue. Peter and Valentine have been hanging out a lot more together, doing Locke and Demonthenes as a project together and they just have been talking and having lots of converastions. Valentine has seen what Peter has done in the past and she is still skeptical.
5. I think Graff underestimates the Buggers. He thinks that just because they have Ender that everything will all turn out well. He says that their ways of communicating are off, that they don't know what's coming until it's already there and that with Ender, they can win it. He seems like he wants the Bugger war to happen almost for other reasons though, like having a new planet to be on. Maybe that's just me but that's what I think.
Chapter 14:
1. Ender is wary about Eros and he says it's because; "I thought the Buggers burned that into a ractioactive-ah." He doesn't finish his sentence in my perspective because he is just frightened. Eros is where the buggers will be, where anything could go down, where Buggers had colonized before. He is uneasy because it feels sketchy to be there in the presence of past buggers.
2. Ender caught on fast and was soon better than all the teachers he ever had at the battle school. Mazer actually won the bugger war and he is much stronger than Ender so he can actually teach him things that no one elso can. He can tell him specific things about the planet and the buggers, battle strategies, and how the buggers stratagies might work. The other teachers just kind of taught him small things but just let him do his own thing from there on.
3. Mazer didn't tell him the truth because he knew that if he did know about how the bugger war really went down, that Ender would be very hesitant and scrared. He wasn't telling him that when he sends troops somewhere, their lives are going to be taken. if Ender knew that, he would feel guilty and not want to fight.
4. I think that any kid shouldn't be pushed too hard even if they are really talented. They were pushed a little too far in Battle school and possibly a little when Ender trained them on Eros. I think that even though it was tough, they pulled it off well and winning the Bugger war was worth all the time and effort that they had put into training.
5. I don't think that killing of the entire race of buggers was justified even if they were the enemy. Survival of the fittest was taken a little too far. Killing the buggers that were looking like they were going to be a threatening would have been a better method for the war. The bugger's took lives but they didn't kill everyone. I see how humans wanted to prove that they are way more powerful than the buggers but that was just too extensive.
Chapter 15:
1. I think he would agree with what Valentine said but not all of it. I think Ender would rather just be himself, but every role he has been put into hasn't really been all that bad. He gets all the accomidations he needs to survive and people there to support him. Being made to be someone you aren't/don't want to nessecaily be must be hard and I think Ender is getting tired of having to be placed as someone rather than just working the way he usually would.
2. Ender doesn't like the fact that he killed Stilson and Bonzo. It hurt him. But that pain was made more mild after he killed millions and millions of bugger's and Stilson and Bonzo just became part of that number. Ender says he didn't mean to kill all the buggers, he just wanted to kill the ones that were in his way and the ones that were actually going to attack. He has a heavy load of guilt that he carries around, but he is almost numb to Stilson and Bonzo after all the bugger killings.
3. Valentine doesn't want Ender to see Peter. He has kind of taken over with his powerful ways and she doens't want Ender getting sucked into his world. She doesn't want him to become Peter or even the slightest but like Peter. She loves Ender and wants to protect him from what Peter might do if he goes back to Earth.
4. When Ender and Peter were children, Peter was always the killer, the fighter and the trouble maker. Ender was mostly always trying to do good and have everything be peaceful. But now the tables have turned kind of. Peter is the "lifesaver" of tons of people and Ender is off killing all the buggers.
5. Ender gains knowledege about the buggers through their actions in the bugger war. I think the book is in perspective of the bugger's so that people would see how the buggers think and all they really want to do is defend themselves and protect their queen. When he finds the queen baby, he knows it's his job where it could be raised in peace. Ender had killed all of the buggers and it was almost like his duty to restart their population again.
6. Ender goes as Speaker of the Dead when he writes his books rather than Ender or Andrew Wiggin because he doesn't want to be more known than he already is. He doesn't want people to know he wrote it. This relates to how people are debating keeping Card out of the limelight so when the movie comes out people won't know that he wrote it.
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