Ender's Game--Control and Lies

            Ender Wiggin is an eight-year old boy who, at the age of six, was flung into the responsibility of command at battle school.  He was oppressed by all his fellow soldiers because of his youth (even though they were only twelve themselves) and from that, he doubts himself.  He feels he needs to be better than everyone else.  Which is ridiculous, since he’s six.  The entire system these people have is awful.  They pick out the smartest of all the children—though all of them are already insanely smart—and send them into space—where they can’t leave for six years.  They have no contact with the outside world at all, and everything at school is focused on beating the others.

Many of the characters think the teachers are the ones who make them so competitive, that they’re the ones who try to isolate them.  This strategy is to help them reach their full potential, but Ender is miserable.  He feels conflicted about many things—especially his family.  His brother, Peter, is just as smart as he is, but he wasn’t selected for battle school because he is violent and unpredictable.  He uses his knowledge, however, for his own purposes.  He is currently trying to hack into government files and get more influence, despite being twelve.  But in this universe, six year olds are as intelligent as adults.  They don’t know what it’s like to be normal.  One of the other soldiers at Ender’s school, a boy named Dink, actually says to him, “I’ve seen normal children from books, and we aren’t normal.”  But how would they become that way?  They’re too far in to stop.

It’s all about the game, many veterans—and when I say that I mean twelve year olds—say about battle school.  Their war games, trying to get ahead, trying to be the best.  Some of the students think that the buggers—the aliens they’re fighting—don’t even exist anymore.  That they’re only trying to gain control so people won’t know what’s really happening—the actual war going on on Earth.  Peter and Valentine (his sister) found out about it by hacking some files.  I think this is true.  If the aliens are as powerful as they’re supposed to be, why haven’t they taken over the Earth already?  Do they just not want to interfere?  Were they already beaten?  Or do they simply not exist?  It seems to be the only possible explanation of all the facts.  What the teachers are telling them is very questionable.

In the end, I don’t know how it’s going out turn out for Ender.  He struggles against the side of him that’s commanding and cruel, but if he’s any other way he’s thought of as weak.  Will he go the way he’s been pressured to go, or use his knowledge for the better?  Another thing I wonder about is what will happen when this generation of soldiers grows up.  Will they be sent into war with the aliens, or will they be used in the war that the government tries to be hiding on Earth?  Will they be angry that they were lied to, or just go along with it and be ruthless, mindless killers?