Ender's Game

H

Hobbes2702

500+ Posts
Anyone ever read this book. I read it in High School and loves it. They are trying to make it into a movie but the project is having trouble getting off the ground. Wolfgang Peterson was on as director but he is no longer. For those who have read the book, who would you like to see direct it. I personally would like to see Darren Aronofsky direct because he is willing to push the limits and that is obviously what someone directing this needs to do. The child nudity needs to be cut out but the violence still needs to be intense. Any thoughts?
 
Great book. The sci-fi setting and plot was captivating, but I thought emotional bond between Valentine and Ender was the strongest, and most touching, part of the book.
 
I enjoyed this book a lot... but the whole time I read it I couldn't shake how blatently it read as if written by a self hating homosexual. The overtones were so strong I had to read up on Card, and was not the least bit surprised to find him a vocal anti-homosexual 'critic'.

Its always the closet types who scream the loudest, but a fun book.
 
I guess I never noticed that. I was pretty caught up in the book though and I was only in 10th grade so I didn't catch that. That disappoints me though. I always loved the book and to hear that there was an undertone that I didn't pick up in is upsetting. Especially an undertone that I am completely against. It is their life, let them live it.
 
Don't let it ruin the fun, it is still a good book.

That said, how do you miss the homosexual undertones in a naked shower fight to the death? In fact both of Ender's violent episodes just reeked of some strange sexual tension. Maybe it is just me.

But like I said, it is a fun book, and I'd love to see the movie. I didn't enjoy the sequel so much but Ender's Game itself was fun.
 
I read Ender's Game as well as the sequels in Junior High. I thought Ender's Game was great. The sequels were good, but not on the same level.
 
I don't have my copy of the book any more, but I'll see if I can track down what it was that got me about the first fight. Its been more than a few years since I read it, but I remember the theme being repeated frequently over the course of the book. I remember the naked shower fight as just the culmination of a very closeted book.
 
I wasn't a huge fan of the book but did think that the scene/chapter/whatever with the old commander (who had fought back the bad guys the last time and then been sent into space at light speed so he live long enough to defeat the bad guys again) was interesting.
 
It's funny this topic is brought up... I just re read my copy last week, and I've got to say, I never even thought about any latent homosexual themes.

It's a darned good story, and if it goes to the movies, I REALLY hope they don't screw up the brother and sister portion, as I think it is 1A in order of importance only following Ender's ruthlessness when provoked.
 
I don't see anything homoerotic about a 10-year-old being cornered naked and defenseless by other 10-year-olds and being threatened with imminent death.

I also don't see what is homoerotic about said boy unexpectedly beating the lead instigator to death in self defense.

I think the whole "naked" element was designed to illustrate in a literal sense Ender's figurative nakedness, meaning that he was caught unawares by his greatest antagonist in a room without friends and without a way out. And, oh by the way, he's literally naked as well. And STILL he wins.

Nothing homoerotic about that scene, or that book, except what the reader brings to the table.

Orson Scott Card probably is a bit nutty, though.
 
I'll be surprised if the movie, if it's even made, is worth a damn. There is far too much inner dialogue that would be difficult to translate to the big screen. Loved the book though.
 
I was too young to see anything weird or homoerotic in the book when I first read it, and I've never noticed it sense. I think the majority of the themes which you perceive as repressed homosexuality would also resonate with any group that feels like an outsider. I think that's why the book speaks so strongly with geeks. I'm not saying card isn't a repressed homo, in fact that may have been where the book came from, but you could just as easily read it as him being a geek that got a lot of wedgies in middle school. In fact, since it's science fiction, that might even be the more likely of the two, though they aren't mutually exclusive. He could have been a repressed homo geek who got picked on for both his gayness and his geekiness. Much of his philosophies leak through into his books, though, whether he intends it or not, like the business with Thirds and in shadow of the hegemon or whatever (it sucked), it was a clear-cut anti-abortion pro-have lots of babies with birth defects mormon manifesto.
 
I think its particularly interesting in that its included in the USMC Commandant's suggested reading list for junior Marines.
 
So I love this book.

I'm also aware of Card's thoughts on the gay.

I've read the book more than once, and I didn't read any gayness in it. I did identify a great deal with Ender though because as a gay guy myself, I know what that isolation feels like.

The isolation was spot on.

I didn't like the follow-on's that were written with Ender's Game originally, but Card later wrote a new trilogy that was a shadow series to go with Ender's Game. Those were really good. The first in that series was Ender's Shadow, and it told the Ender's Game story from the point of view of Bean instead.

Despite Card's political beliefs, Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow are still two of my favorite books.
 
Sorry, the book wasn't outright about mormonism or even religion, but the bean stories culminated in what (to me) seemed like really transparent anti-abortion propaganda. The last one I read ended with an incredibly long-winded treatise by bean about choosing life, and having babies even if you think there's a good chance they'll be messed up, and so on.

I think a lot of geeks love the ender's game books so much because ender is an outsider due to being smarter than everyone else. The theme of the isolation of genius is something that smart kids, who frequently don't fit in well at school, will connect with. It's pretty easy to confuse this with repressed homosexualtiy, and there may be an undercurrent of that there too, but it's a theme that's present in some of his other books too, but more clearly geek isolation than homo isolation. The worthing saga/chronicle is similar, because the main character is a mind reader. He's smart, he's capable, he can do things no one else can do, and everyone hates and fears him for it. Kinda like Ender, but with no shower scenes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top