Enders Game

The book Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is a book about a futuristic six-year old boy named Andrew “Ender” Wiggin who is recruited to a military school for kids. He is determined to be the best one, and battles the Formics, an alien species more commonly known as “Buggers”. In this book, Ender learns that killing your enemy doesn’t always mean winning. In the book, Ender is put up against multiple enemies. Each time, though he wins, he does not rejoice in, instead crying over the fact that he had to fight at all.

One of the fights Ender endures is with his former commander, Bonso. When Bonso feels like Ender made a fool of him, he attacks Ender in the bathroom, with intentions to kill. When he has Ender in a headlock, Ender head-butts him in the nose, driving his nose back into his skull, unintentionally killing him. Even though Ender doesn’t find out he killed him until later in the book, Ender still cries as he is escorted away from the scene. When his friend, Dink, is helping him away from the scene, Ender says to him “I didn’t want to hurt him.” Even though Ender was the one attacked, Ender still was crying. Even though Ender won the fight, he still was sad that he had to fight.

Another battle that Ender has to fight is with the Buggers. He is told he is playing a combat simulation, while he is actually fighting real battles. After his final battle, Ender burns the whole planet, committing genocide and  wiping out the buggers forever. After he finds out that the battle was real, he breaks down. A couple days later, when he awakens, his explanation is “In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.” Ender felt empathy for the Buggers. He did not want to destroy them. Even though the buggers had endangered the whole human race, Ender still wanted to call a truce instead of fight. And after he was forced to fight, he felt so bad that he spent the rest of his life looking for a place for the last bugger egg that the last queen bugger had given him where the  buggers could colonize again.

Throughout the book, Ender is faced with many enemies, all of which he defeats. And, after he defeats each enemy, he always cries. Even though Ender kills all of the enemys, he still doesn’t win because he never wanted to kill them. In our time, there is a lot of war that our world endures. In the war, many people are killed. But in the end, what is gained? Really, the only thing that comes from fighting is death. And nothing good ever comes from death. Ender learns a very important lesson - that hurting your enemy doesn’t mean winning. And I think that is a lesson that we all should learn.