Ender's Game Heroism Analysis

Ender’s Game Heroism Essay Is it okay to commit genocide and come out guiltless? Well, Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, follows the journey of a young boy, Ender, who has the fate of humanity on his shoulders. This book is set in a future era; there are spaceships, colonization of planets, and battles with the infamous buggers. The buggers were considered a threat to the humans and their colonization. As a result, when Ender had been the commander of the troops that wiped them out, humans rejoiced. However, the catch is that Ender had been manipulated into committing this act of genocide. He did not even know he was killing the buggers; however, people like John Kessel want to blame him. John Kessel wrote the article, “Creating the Innocent Killer,” which talks about how Ender committed genocide and came out not only hands clean, but also a hero. Kessel also

Card, himself, said, “My future sister-in-law, Laura Dene Low (she soon married my older brother, Bill), had urged me to read Asimov's Foundation trilogy, which blew me away. I found myself wanting to come up with a futuristic story myself.” Card wrote the book because he wanted to use his imagination to write something awesome. As a result, when Kessel argues that the novel was created based on “... ethics under which Ender can kill without being guilty” (13), it cannot be correct. First of all, Ender felt an immense amount of guilt saying, “I didn’t want to kill anybody! I’m not a killer!” (297). Ender also fought out of defense because all of his aggressors attacked him. Plus, how can authors create entertaining and intriguing books if their imaginations were limited. Millions of popular books have heroes who have killed: Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, or Harry from Harry Potter. As a result, why can Card not write about someone who kills? In addition, do we now limit what authors can write