Blog thoughts: Ender’s Game
The Hero’s Journey Comparison
The story Ender’s Game is about a boy named Andrew that is the third child of the Wiggins family. This is unusual, since the story is set in a time where the population is strictly controlled, families do not have three children, there is a much anticipated war with the Buggers and kids are being recruited into service to save Earth. Andrew Wiggins, we find out, is the child that has been chosen by the government to be the one that will be the great leader and win the war against the buggers. What we find at the beginning of the story is that Andrew, who calls himself Ender, is a five year old child that at a young age realizes that being a third had put stress on his family, caused discourse with his oldest sibling and understands that his life as a third does not give him any options for a normal life.
The story Ender’s Game is written in a format called a Hero’s Journey. This style of writing identifies the hero, and designs for to the hero character a set of challenges that the hero must accept, reject and persevere to essentially be awarded the great prize, the hero. All of these challenges that give the sense that once completed the hero will have accomplished gretaness and his achievements will have great rewards.E
Ender’s is the youngest in a family of three children. When Peter, the eldest of the Wiggin children was born, he was the child the government hoped would be the one to save Earth. But as Peter grew, characteristics not condusive to a hero become evident. Peter turned out to be smart, but violent, mean and narcissistic. The government allowed the Wiggins a second child, a girl. Thought the second child, a girl, would be smart, but more gentile than Peter, it turned out that Valentine, was smart but too gentile for what the government wanted. So the government allowed the Wiggin’s to have a third child. This was a very big issue. First, no one had a third child. There is a negative stigma attached to those who had more children that the government allowed. Second, the propose of the third child was to have a child that was less violent than Peter but not as gentle as Valentine, a nice complement of the two older children. Those there are many issues with this; the situation of a third child sets up a tone within the family. There is discourse between the kids, the parents and kids. Peter is not nice to Ender, in fact, cruel. And Valentine is always protecting Ender from Peter who resents Ender for being the “chosen” one.
This introduction to Ender Wiggins’ is also the introduction to the writing narrative of a “Hero’s Journey”. With this style of writing, the hero (Ender) is identified at the beginning of the narrative. We learn early on what Ender’s role is, he is the one chosen to save the world from the Buggers when the war breaks out. The pattern that the story follows is like others that utilize the hero journey formula. For example, other narrative stories like Star Wars’ Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter’s well Harry Potter are characters that are developed to be the characters that become the hero. Selected from the ordinary and had greatness forced upon them. The intrigue of this narrative is the process the character goes through to become this hero. When we first meet Ender he is a 5 year old and he is having his monitor removed. The monitor is a way for the government to see, hear, understand Ender's thoughts, basically invade him. We learn that he has two siblings, Peter the oldest and Valentine, the middle child. Ender’s life is filled with anxiety that you can since from the start. The level of abuse Ender suffers at the hand of the kids at school is abated when he had his monitor. However once his monitor has been removed, he no longer has the protection of someone watching all the time. Once the monitor is removed and kids begin to find out, he is almost immediately drawn into a fight with a bully. The beginning of the story shows us the less than ordinary kid with great suffering, the hero Ender, as an badly treated kid that doesn’t have too many life options. H is treated badly at school and treated badly at home.
It is those feeling that lead Ender to accept the invitation to Battle Schooland onto the hero journey. He doesn’t fit in at home, rejected by society with strict population controls but is the one identified by the government to be the one to save Earth. When an official from the government comes to Ender’s house, ender is face with the decision to both leave and begin his training to become a hero or stay at home.
Ender decides to leave home and train at Battle School. He is torn between leaving his parents, but mostly about leaving his sister Valentine. This is something that bothers him very much and he realizes that he will not be able to see them for a while. In the true sense of the Hero’s Journey, Ender choosing to leave his home and travel to another place to what has been described to him as his destiny, is the first of many of the obstacles that Ender faces, but also the first in following the hero’s struggles.
We read how Ender is continually faced with challenges that for him to follow his path to becoming hero or rejecting it. Once at Battle School Ender is forced into being isolated and marginalized by the officials of the School. Ender alone must face the challenges. He is continually treated differently than the other students and must choose what is right for him and saving the world. He is in constant turmoil. His belief of the system, his family, friends, and himself is challenged at each stage of his training. For each of his accomplishments he is met with a more intense, emotionally challenging situation that Ender must figure out for himself if he can survive, physically and emotionally, without being left void of compassion and love.
The Hero’s Journey Comparison
The story Ender’s Game is about a boy named Andrew that is the third child of the Wiggins family. This is unusual, since the story is set in a time where the population is strictly controlled, families do not have three children, there is a much anticipated war with the Buggers and kids are being recruited into service to save Earth. Andrew Wiggins, we find out, is the child that has been chosen by the government to be the one that will be the great leader and win the war against the buggers. What we find at the beginning of the story is that Andrew, who calls himself Ender, is a five year old child that at a young age realizes that being a third had put stress on his family, caused discourse with his oldest sibling and understands that his life as a third does not give him any options for a normal life.
The story Ender’s Game is written in a format called a Hero’s Journey. This style of writing identifies the hero, and designs for to the hero character a set of challenges that the hero must accept, reject and persevere to essentially be awarded the great prize, the hero. All of these challenges that give the sense that once completed the hero will have accomplished gretaness and his achievements will have great rewards.E
Ender’s is the youngest in a family of three children. When Peter, the eldest of the Wiggin children was born, he was the child the government hoped would be the one to save Earth. But as Peter grew, characteristics not condusive to a hero become evident. Peter turned out to be smart, but violent, mean and narcissistic. The government allowed the Wiggins a second child, a girl. Thought the second child, a girl, would be smart, but more gentile than Peter, it turned out that Valentine, was smart but too gentile for what the government wanted. So the government allowed the Wiggin’s to have a third child. This was a very big issue. First, no one had a third child. There is a negative stigma attached to those who had more children that the government allowed. Second, the propose of the third child was to have a child that was less violent than Peter but not as gentle as Valentine, a nice complement of the two older children. Those there are many issues with this; the situation of a third child sets up a tone within the family. There is discourse between the kids, the parents and kids. Peter is not nice to Ender, in fact, cruel. And Valentine is always protecting Ender from Peter who resents Ender for being the “chosen” one.
This introduction to Ender Wiggins’ is also the introduction to the writing narrative of a “Hero’s Journey”. With this style of writing, the hero (Ender) is identified at the beginning of the narrative. We learn early on what Ender’s role is, he is the one chosen to save the world from the Buggers when the war breaks out. The pattern that the story follows is like others that utilize the hero journey formula. For example, other narrative stories like Star Wars’ Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter’s well Harry Potter are characters that are developed to be the characters that become the hero. Selected from the ordinary and had greatness forced upon them. The intrigue of this narrative is the process the character goes through to become this hero. When we first meet Ender he is a 5 year old and he is having his monitor removed. The monitor is a way for the government to see, hear, understand Ender's thoughts, basically invade him. We learn that he has two siblings, Peter the oldest and Valentine, the middle child. Ender’s life is filled with anxiety that you can since from the start. The level of abuse Ender suffers at the hand of the kids at school is abated when he had his monitor. However once his monitor has been removed, he no longer has the protection of someone watching all the time. Once the monitor is removed and kids begin to find out, he is almost immediately drawn into a fight with a bully. The beginning of the story shows us the less than ordinary kid with great suffering, the hero Ender, as an badly treated kid that doesn’t have too many life options. H is treated badly at school and treated badly at home.
It is those feeling that lead Ender to accept the invitation to Battle Schooland onto the hero journey. He doesn’t fit in at home, rejected by society with strict population controls but is the one identified by the government to be the one to save Earth. When an official from the government comes to Ender’s house, ender is face with the decision to both leave and begin his training to become a hero or stay at home.
Ender decides to leave home and train at Battle School. He is torn between leaving his parents, but mostly about leaving his sister Valentine. This is something that bothers him very much and he realizes that he will not be able to see them for a while. In the true sense of the Hero’s Journey, Ender choosing to leave his home and travel to another place to what has been described to him as his destiny, is the first of many of the obstacles that Ender faces, but also the first in following the hero’s struggles.
We read how Ender is continually faced with challenges that for him to follow his path to becoming hero or rejecting it. Once at Battle School Ender is forced into being isolated and marginalized by the officials of the School. Ender alone must face the challenges. He is continually treated differently than the other students and must choose what is right for him and saving the world. He is in constant turmoil. His belief of the system, his family, friends, and himself is challenged at each stage of his training. For each of his accomplishments he is met with a more intense, emotionally challenging situation that Ender must figure out for himself if he can survive, physically and emotionally, without being left void of compassion and love.
Ender manages to survive physically, but emotionally he is questioning all that he does and who he is. He rejects himself and feels more and more despair. While there is a growing sense of urgency that the war with the Buggers will start any moment, Ender’s internal struggle grows.
Ender realizes that is has grown very tired of the simulation of war games and wants to end it all. When he destroys the Bugger planet, he does so thinking that it is part of the simulation. Not realizing that the simulation was the war. So that the Hero did what he was suppose to do, by saving the world, however, in doing so Ender destroyed an entire race. Interestingly, with this ending, the Hero Journey scenario perpetuates itself to further the hero in another challenge, the challenge to find a new world for the Queen to live.
Card, O. S. (1991) Ender's Game. New York: Tor Books.
