What strikes me in reading Ender's Game, is the obvious irony of Ender's training. Even as the Bugger threat unified Earth, humanity's champion had little in common with the people he was supposed to protect. Commissioned to be weapon, Ender was isolated from birth. As a Third, he was already an outcast, a rare and embarrassing exception to the law. While most people grew up hating the Buggers, Ender had to learn to become one, to empathize with them. "Buggers and astronauts" is in a way a foreshadowing game. Ender has to literally put on the mask of an alien. In order to save his family, his planet, he had to learn how to love the enemy.
Phil likened Ender to a Christ figure, and I have to agree with that interpretation. Ender sacrificed himself, his humanity, to save a planet. He assembled his own disciples. He threatened the old order. He was chosen to be a savior at birth. He really did love his enemy. At the end of the book, he is roaming distant planets, author of two now-holy books, preaching a new sort of religion.
So I guess what Orson Scott Card is trying to tell us, is that love is the most powerful weapon of all. Pretty cheesy, I know, but it fits.
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Hey Tim, how would conscience and consciousness of action destabilize this argument? While I partially agree with Phil's likening of Ender to a Christ figure, at least metaphorically, I feel that there is a part of this metaphor that doesn't exactly fit the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteWhereas Christ knowingly sacrificed himself, Ender did not. Ender turned out to be a pawn of sorts in a deal-or-no-deal, life or death game of survival. Ender's revelation is Christ-like in that he becomes conscious of what he has done. This is an experience which weighs heavily on his conscience, thus directly influencing his later, Christ-like actions. Conscience is not what drove Christ to sacrifice himself, his humanity, to save a planet. Consciousness did that.
True, Ender assembled his own disciples. But these disciples are different than the Apostles. And while teachers can be likened to soldiers — in that they wage an eternal war against a lack of understanding, ignorance, and unconsciousness — there is a difference between the methods employed by teachers and those employed by soldiers. Christ's disciples did not teach through the near-genocide of an entire race, like Ender's did, but some of them taught through their own deaths.
Threatening an old order has no meaning in itself, unless the order proves itself to be so old that it truly is outdated. Ender challenged a regime on Earth, whereas Christ challenged the whole of humanity.
The difference between Christ and Ender exists in the state of consciousness in which they carry out their actions. Ender unknowingly destroyed another race to save his own. That doesn't seem to be a very Christ-like act, particularly when the unborn Formic queen reveals that, because communication between species proved impossible, and because the Formics were unaware that humankind is a sentient race.
The questions I find myself asking are as follows: Would Ender have acted as he did, had he been consciousness of the true consequences of his actions? And would he still be Christ-like if he did not act as he did? Does bearing a likeness to Christ necessitate the doing of Christ-like actions or inhabiting a Christ-like state of being?
I think the argument for Ender's spot as a Christ-figure comes from the sacrifices he makes, not the destruction he brings. Ender gives up his life for the people of earth, not in the sense that he dies, but in that he signs his life over to the military. He becomes theirs, with no control over his own life. Even after he leaves the military, he can never return to earth. So we have a character giving up his life so that others may live, and then ascending into the heavens. I would also ague that the fact that Ender did not know what he was doing only further cements his status as a Christ-figure. Ender never consciously kills anything larger than a wasp in the novel. He is a destroyer to be certain, but if he were conscious of his xenocide, it would be hard to see him as Christ-like.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to go back to Tim's post and say I agree with the analysis that Ender had to be like the buggers to win. This was a large part of my own post, but there are a few more ways he is similar that I'll bring up here. First the regimented life inside the tunnels and pathways of Battle School are very reminiscent of a hive life. And second Ender's psychology when compared to his siblings is rather bug like. His brother was deemed to vicious and blood thirsty, and while bugs can certainly be violent, it is not out of a desire to kill but merely instinct. His sister was too gentle, certainly not like any insect I know of. But Ender is efficiency driven, fights for protection and is willing to put his own life on the line for the collective, all of which are very bug like traits.
I can't claim to have made a perfect argument, far from it, in fact. I've had a difficult time trying to unpack Ender's Game, but I feel that I was getting close to something with the observation. The most interesting thing about a Christ figure is not in how he/she completely mirrors Jesus, but in the points of divergence.
ReplyDeleteYou point out a number of inconsistencies, and I do not argue with them. Instead, I wonder what is the meaning of this conscious mixture of ancient symbolism and original direction. I'm not there yet, but if I ever figure it out, I'll let you know.