Miscommunication In Ender's Game By Orson Scott Card

Miscommunication occurs when there is confusion while relaying information. Confused forms of communication unintentionally causes many disagreements, and these conflicts often lead to war. War, a non diplomatic way to solve problems, would not occur if leaders, with the citizens, would simply discuss the issues that at hand. However, war can lead to to the progress of the winning side although the defeated are conquered and gain nothing. In the American Revolution, General Howe, the British commander, did not receive the instructions from Lord Germain, his leader, about where to go, and he walked straight into a trap constructed by the Americans, which ultimately led to the defeat of the British. Moreover, Britain and America quarrelled, causing

In Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, although humans vainly attempt to communicate with the buggers, Earth declares war with the alien species because the humans misunderstand their intentions; ironically, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin defeats and destroys the buggers after lacking communication with his own leaders about Battle School and Command School’s purposes, contributing to his misunderstanding and confusion of the End War.

The war between the buggers and the humans, which only occurred because the buggers’ communication, deemed inadequate by the human race, highlights the misunderstanding of intentions throughout the novel. In the beginning of the novel after Ender arrives at Battle School, Colonel Graff, the central commander at the school, explains to Ender the chief reason why the buggers need eradication. Graff proceeds to offer Ender information about the identity of the bugger army and their obscure war means: “‘The buggers are out there. Ten billion, a hundred billion, a million billion of them . . . With as many weapons we can’t understand. And a willingness to use those weapons’” (35). Graff, ignorant of the buggers weapons because never a warrior in the fight

As Ender enters Battle School, Graff declares that everyone has a certain purpose. Graff alludes to Ender’s role: “‘Individual human beings are all tools’” (35). Graff’s comment foreshadows his ideas for Ender’s life in Battle and Command School. Graff views Ender and all the other children purely as instruments in Graff’s master plan of defeating the buggers while withholding information about what the children’s purposes truly are. This withheld information hurts Ender once he learns that he, like Graff once indirectly told him, only aids in the destruction of the buggers. Although Ender believes that he plays against a stimulation in Command School, like the leaders told him, he actually defeats the buggers in each individual victory, the largest victory imminent in the End Game. Right after Ender destroys the buggers in the End Game, Mazer Rackham explains to Ender, “‘There were no games, the battles were real, and the only enemy you fought was the buggers. … you destroyed them completely’” (296-297). Ironically, Ender thinks everything is a game consequently because of the ideas that Graff placed in Ender’s mind, when in all actuality, nothing was a game while he commanded. Confused, Ender