Ender's Game door Orson Scott Card

Plot summary

The story is set in the future, around the year 2070. That is forty years since an almost devastating alien invasion by the Buggers, an alien type from the other side of the galaxy. The war was barely won by a genius general, but he is not able to protect the world again for another upcoming war with the Buggers. So the world is desperately searching for a new general who can try to save the world from devastation.

The story is about Andrew ‘Ender’ Wiggin, a young boy from who lives on planet Earth. Ender is six in the beginning of the book, but in the end he is about fourteen years old. He is the third in a family of children who are very special, because they think and do as if they are smart adults. His brother Peter hates Ender for having a monitor on his back longer then Peter had. A monitor is a device that allows the heads of the military to see things as Ender sees them. The military gave him a monitor to see if he is able to go to the Battle School, where young children are being trained to become officers in the army. One day, Ender’s monitor gets taken away, which suggests that he is not good enough to join the school. However, Ender still gets asked by someone from the Battle School to come and join it. Ender accepts the request and goes to the Battle School, leaving behind the person that he loves the most: his sister Valentine.

The school is placed on a floating space station in space. When Ender arrives, he has the hardest time of his live, because the teachers do everything to make him the best general possible, which is not always easy. Because he is such a brilliant boy, he raises himself to the top of the Battle Room, a huge null-gravity chamber where two armies fight laser battles against each other.

He has to deal with loneliness, isolation, rivalry from his fellow students and pressure from the adult teachers.

After Battle School, Ender gets taken to Command School. At Command School, Ender meets Mazer Rackham, the genius general who saved the world in the last Buggers invasion. Mazer lets Ender train his skills in commanding a fleet with a simulator, and some of the kids which were good too in the Battle School, are now sub-commanders helping Ender to win the simulation wars. They play the simulation and win almost every game. One day, Ender has to do a final exam to become an official commander of real fleets. Ender wins the simulation fight, but then he gets told that it wasn’t a simulation and that he just won the war against the Buggers.

What I think the author is telling us

I think that the author is telling us that you sometimes got to do something which you don’t really like, but it is necessary because of the importance of it. Ender did a wonderful job at destroying the buggers, but yet he hates himself for the number of people he hurt, or sometimes even killed. He doesn’t really like the fact that they lied to him by saying the simulator was a game while it was real and he was fighting against millions of buggers, and he killed them all. Another thing that the author is telling us, is that you better don’t underestimate people because of their age or size. Young people sometimes are better at something then grownups are, there was not a single adult who could do the same thing that Ender did in the war against the buggers.

What was the book like, and how did I enjoy it

I really enjoyed the story, you get sucked into it and want to keep on reading. The book however contained a lot of difficult words, which made it hard to fully understand the details without having to grab a dictionary. A lot of the difficult words had to do with politics, and because I don’t really understand all the translations of the words in Dutch, I sometimes had to guess what they meant. The book itself was pretty long, with 324 pages and a lot of difficult words it was not the easiest book that I could’ve picked. I also enjoyed the story because of the main character, he is just a little boy who becomes older throughout the story and in the end he saves the human mankind. The hero in most stories is an adult, but in this book it is a little boy so that was something different which I liked. Throughout the book you get to feel empathy for Ender, especially when the teachers do something to make Ender’s life extra hard, or whenever he gets bullied for being the best in the school. You also get to know things that Ender himself doesn’t know, which make the story extra exiting. For example you get to know that he kills a classmate who had bullied Ender for a long time and then begun to fight Ender. Ender started to fight back and knocked him down. Ender thought that he had only hurt his classmate, but later on in the story you hear two teachers talk about Ender and mention that the classmate died after their fight. In the end, the story gets really interesting as Ender finds out what he unintentionally did to the buggers and their planet and regrets it because he doesn’t want to be a murderer.

Difficult words

• Artificial = kunstmatig
• Groin = kruis
• Trashing = afgeranseld
• Clenching = vuisten ballen
• Lurched = slingeren
• Shrugged = schouders ophalen
• Smirked = grijsde
• Arithmetic = rekenkunde
• Forestall = voorkomen
• Supine = achteroverliggend
• Viciously = boosaardig
• Parlor = zitkamer
• Vivisect = dierproeven
• Commiserated = medelijden hebben
• Murmured = mompelde
• Glowered = een somber gezicht opzetten
• Extenuating = verzachtend
• Incredulous = ongelovig
• Consent = toestemming
• Charade = schijnvertoning
• Conscripts = dienstplichtigen
• Commodores = bevelhebber
• Flotillas = kleine vloot
• Vessel = vaartuig
• Domestic = binnenlands
• Glared = woest kijken
• Baptized = gedoopt
• Invoked = ingeroepen
• Noncomplying = ongehoorzaam
• Renounced = vaarwel zeggen
• Vowed = zwoer
• Mormon = mormoon, aanhanger van een geloof
• Ambiguous = dubbelzinnig
• Ancestry = afkomst
• Quarrelled = ruzie
• Cowardice = lafheid
• Evade = ontwijken
• Requisitioned = opgeëist
• Scraped = geschraapt
• Scathing = vernietigend

Assignment 1: Interview with Andrew Wiggin

Our guest today is Andrew Wiggin, saver of the world in a battle against the Buggers.

Andrew, your nickname is ‘Ender’, where does that name come from?

“Well, when I was a little boy, my sister couldn’t say the word ‘Andrew’ so she kept on calling me ‘Ender’, as it kind of sounds the same. After all, I think it is a very fitting nickname for me since I ‘ended’ the Buggers.”

Okay, I heard your brother hated you when he was little; why was that?

“Well, Peter hated me because I was the living proof that he was not good enough, because he wasn’t accepted to the Battle School for his bad behaviours.”

Did you hate Peter as well?

“Well… I did not really hate him, I was more afraid of him.”

Why was that?

“When we were little and I wasn’t yet sent to the Battle School, he always wanted to play this game called Buggers and Astronauts. I didn’t really like it but he kept on forcing me to play with him. We would then play as is we were fighting a war between the Buggers and the Astronauts, but the Astronauts would always win. And he always played the Astronaut, so I would always lose the fight. Because the game was not always as gentle, he really hurt me when we played. I think that that is why I was afraid of him as a child.

And your sister Valentine, what did she think about Peter?

“She was also afraid of him, she tried to protect me from him but that did not always turn out so great because he then was angry at Valentine.”

What did you miss the most when you went to the Battle School?

“I think I missed Valentine the most. She was always so nice to me. When I first left, I thought that I would miss my parents the most but that didn’t turn out to be so. I forgot about them very quickly.”

Did you enjoy being at the Battle School instead of being home with Peter?

“In the beginning I had homesickness; I wanted to get back home. But after a short period I didn’t think of home as much as I did earlier.”

What was the hardest period at the Battle School for you?

“That was when I was the officer of Dragon Army, and we had two battles every day. We totally weren’t prepared for that, and we were very tired and weak because of that. I knew that I thought back then that I would ask if I could go back home if they kept on giving us two battles a day.”

How did you feel when you had defeated the Buggers?

“I felt sick of myself because I didn’t want to be a murderer; I didn’t want to hurt people or even Buggers. I also felt very angry, because they had said to me that it was just a simulation of a war and not a real one. They hadn’t even asked if I would want to be an officer.”

What did you do after your fight with the Buggers?

“Well… I went to my room and went to sleep. I had to play those ‘simulations’ way too much in that time. They sat me down every day behind that simulator in order for me to practice. I was very, very tired back then, so that was why I went to sleep, so I could just rest.”

Thank you to take time for this interview, Ender. I hope to see you again someday.

“No problem, goodbye!”

Assignment 2: Quiz to determine if people have really read the book and not only a summary

What is Ender’s first real name?

-Andrew is his first name, but he prefers to call himself Ender.

In which country does Ender live in the beginning of the story?

- He lives in America.

What game did Ender and Peter play on Earth, before Ender went to the Battle School?

- A game called ‘Buggers and Astronauts’.

How old was Peter when his monitor was removed?

-He was six years old.

Why does Ender cry after he had beaten up his classmate in his school on Earth?

- Because he doesn’t like to hurt other people

Who is going to miss Ender the most when he leaves the earth?

-His sister Valentine is going to miss Ender the most.

How old is Ender when is goes to the Battle School?

-He is six years old when he goes to the Battle School.

Who is the person that he likes the least when he just arrived at the Battle School?

-Bernard, because he excludes Ender from his group.

What was Ender’s first friend in the Battle School?

- Alai was his first friend, but Ender first thought that Colonel Graff was his friend.

What is the name of the videogame that Ender plays the most in the School?

-The mind game.

What does Ender’s friend Alai say to him before Ender moves to his first army barracks, and what does it mean?

-He says ‘Salaam’, which means peace in Arabic.

What is the name of Ender’s own army in the Battle School?

-The name of his own army is Dragon Army.

What is the number of the maximum amount of battles Ender had with Dragon Army on one day?

-Three battles was the most number of battles that he had on one day.

How many wars with the buggers where there before the war in which Ender played a big role?

-There had been two wars before the one where Ender killed almost all of the buggers.

Who uses Demosthenes as a pseudonym?

-Ender’s sister Valentine.