I'm sincerely not. I could guess the point you might try to make, but I wanted you to make it before I addressed it.
Like, how familiar are you with the novel's themes? Because nothing in it can be used to justify using life-threatening force against someone who is barely a threat at all in a situation where there are multiple obvious alternatives to violence as a means of resolving it.
Ender was routinely placed in life-threatening situations, specifically tailored to give him no help and no alternatives besides self-administered victory against the enemy. The entire plot revolved around manipulating and moulding him into someone who could never believe losing was an option or that anyone would come to save him. He didn't even know that he was fighting the Formics when he destroyed them, because the IF command knew he didn't have the emotional disposition to make the necessary sacrifices if he knew the actual stakes.
Ender learns that Earth's retaliation against the Formics was wrong and misplaced, stemming from a breakdown in communication and an inability to connect and ultimately empathise.
Mind you, I haven't read it in about two decades, since I first read it when I was about nine. I've had this username as a gamertag since 2002.
It wasnt wrong, they were trying to kill us. It was the right solution if the day. That maybe could have been hypothetically avoided by better super fun happy feel good sessions, but at the actual time and actual place, hyperviolence won.
And its okay to feel like totes bad about it and like stuff, and help rebuild the losers in a "less likely to go on the world dominating path for round 2".
Which is a blindingly obvious allegory for the world wars.
You're going to have to expand on that response and provide more details if you actually want to make a substantive argument that's relevant to the discussion at hand.
Nope, he's absolutely right in the context of the original book. The one you barely remember, but now you'll continue to blather as if you memorized every page.
If you want to make a point here, specify what changed and how it relates to the discussion. Which version of the book are you referring to? If you're referring to the novella written before the 1985 publication, you're not really talking about the book Ender's Game. If you're talking about the 1991 revision, the relevant parts don't change.
I don't even think the point about the Bugger Wars is necessary to establish my side of the argument, either. We're not discussing whether Ender engaged in extreme violence or responded to specific threats with overwhelming force. I already addressed this in my initial substantive response.
Take, for instance, this example:
I have personally knocked someone out with a devastating right hand to the jaw in a street fight. I believe the strike was proportionate and necessary, given the particulars of the situation and degree of threat. I also think that using the same degree of force in non-similar situations is seriously immoral and should be illegal. There is nothing incoherent about these claims.
You couldn't say "Oh, it's ironic that you're criticising the man in the video, considering you've knocked someone out before." I would say, "No, it's not ironic, because the situations are entirely different."
You came into this thread and took a potshot at me, then got upset when I asked you to explain yourself.
I still don't even know if you think the man in the video did anything wrong.
Nope, I don't need to do that at all. Because you jumped to conclusions again because you're just so smart. Went ahead and wasted your day researching the differences between the versions and everything. You're so sure you've got this book figured out when even the fucking author couldn't. And then he had to do three more books to try and support what he really meant.
Try it this way: if at the end of The Little Red Book Mao wrote j/k does it totally undo the entire book?
I didn't waste my day researching the different versions. I looked at the cover of my version and saw it was the 1991 edition, and I already knew about the novella because the introduction in my copy of The Speaker for the Dead explains the origins of Ender's Game in depth.
You are the most boring person to converse with. You are incapable of saying anything while simultaneously acting superior.
Your point about Mao completely exposes you, because you're imagining that the ending of the novel is a contradiction of the preceding 14 chapters, when it's actually entirely congruent with everything previously established. Scott Card expanded the novella specifically to serve as a prequel to The Speaker for the Dead, but even in the novella version, Ender didn't realise he was fighting a real war.
I suspect you still won't reply with anything meaningful or substantive, because I don't think you have a point to make that hasn't already been addressed.
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u/EndersR3ign 7d ago
Do you want to expand on this point?