I Finally Watched Ender's Game

Spoilers alert!  If you haven't read or seen Ender's Game, be warned that I do talk about the end here.

Rambling alert!  This is more about me needing to process than it is about sharing coherent thoughts.  I won't be hurt if you don't continue reading.

I didn't seen Ender's Game in the theater, and today as I watched it, I was glad I never made it the theater.  I couldn't have done it.  But today, on a small laptop screen, with the ability to pause and step away for a few minutes, I got through it.

There aren't too many people who are lukewarm about Orson Scott Card. People tend to love him and his work, or boycott it (and yes, I totally understand and support their reasons for boycotting.)  For me, Orson Scott Card is very much like his amazing book, Ender's Game:  complex and challenging.

Ender's Game was recommended several years ago by a friend who knew I liked sci-fi.  It was my first encounter with Card's work, and I loved it and hated it.  There were things too real and too raw and far too familiar for me to love.  I know Peter Wiggin.  (He gets much less screen time than book time, and I am thankful that some of the Peter stuff didn't make it into the movie.)

I'm a pacifist.  I go to extreme lengths to avoid causing physical or emotional harm to anyone or anything.  I have family and friends in the military, and I support them, but at the same time, I hate that the military is necessary.

So how can I love a story about a boy who leaves an abusive home situation for an abusive military situation where he is manipulated into committing genocide against a race that might not have actually been a present threat?

I can't really remember what besides Card's writing style kept me reading all the way to the end, but the end was where I fell in love with the book.  And although in the movie, the Formic queen was not exactly how I envisioned her, she was beautiful.  And of course, the ending sets in motion all the things that take place in all the books that follow (that I totally loved) without all the pain that Ender's Game caused for me.

As I watched the movie, I thought about how unfair and damaging everything was for Ender, but how ultimately, that is what allowed him to become the person he became.  I long ago gave up the idea that things happen to us in order to create something better.  I don't think God sits back watching and says, "She needs to learn some compassion.  Let's throw this horrible tragedy at her so she can figure it out." I just don't think that that is the way it works.  Life unfolds the way it does because of our own decisions and the decisions of countless others that affect us.  God didn't look at Ender and say, "I want him to become the Speaker for the Dead, so I'll have all these people do all this stuff to make him wipe out the Formics."  Political and military leaders made the decision that eliminating the enemy was the only solution and they used Ender to achieve it.  Ender's transformation came about because of his own choices after he learned the truth.

Something else that I love about Ender's Game is that there are no easy answers.  That's also one of the reasons that I loved 24.  Jack Bauer had to make decisions and take actions that were often illegal and violent.  I hated that, but at the same time, that was what drew me to the show.

As much as some people would like us to believe otherwise, we do not live in a black and white world.    It's mostly varying shades of gray, and you may see a different shade depending on where you are viewing it from.  All we can do is tell our stories, make our voices heard, speak for those who can not speak for themselves, and help others to understand that life is complex and challenging, and that the beauty comes as we struggle to make our way through the muck that life puts in our path.