Christian book review ender game

While the book has an interesting story and a political undertone that would fascinate adults, there are many thematic elements that make this book unsuitable for children and young teenagers. Throughout this fairly lengthy novel, profanity is rampant. The kids in the book often use curse words and off-color language. There are over 60 instances of curse words and at least 2 occurrences of racial slurs; plus, the kids use milder, but still crude, language e.

Profanity aside, there is a troubling bent on the story's content. Heavy violence, blood, and gore are found throughout, most perpetrated by or against the kids. In addition, the way the children are trained is disturbing.

They are taken from their families and subjected to military drills all day, every day. None of the students are allowed to see their families again until they are twelve years old, which results in at least a 6-year separation for most kids. To make him that way, the Battle School is formed to break him. He is isolated. He is tested, abused, and pushed. He is alone. And that's what made the character that prompted soliders and adolescents and lonely children to write to Card.

Boys who are killed in the books are only wounded in the movie, and games the Battle School plays on Ender to break him, psychologically and physically, are shorter, more obvious, less violent. And most obviously, the children in the movie are older than Card's original vision of a six-year-old Ender.

These were not just child soldiers, but people who would never remember any other life. The book was about a rupture of innocence, and that's softened too much by the movie, though that adaptation was likely necessary for the rating.

Even the mystifying shift from Buggers to Formics, the former earth slang for the alien's insectoid carapace, seems designed to soften the obvious Orientalism. The movie feels morally listless and dishonest, having scalped the more brazen, the more expected, violences.

And for such a timeless character, a boy who captures and defeats the disorientation of childhood and adolescence, the movie script feels oddly out of time. When I first read Ender's Game in, even the multipolar world of the s was a far-off dream. It was a world with words like "hegemon" and " Warsaw Pact ": eugenics and the technological society were dangerous, unstable innovations.

In trying to update and modernize the context, the movie runs ashore of the same problems that other reboots in the science fiction and super hero franchise have. It's just not the same world out there: the moral universe, even the fictional one, has simply changed too radically. Instead, we're alarmed as the moral foundations these reboots take for granted and try to defend crumble around us.

Our apocalypse does not come from beyond, but grows from within. Heroes like Green Lantern seem quaint, silly, a bit ridiculous—perpetual suspicion long ago undressed them and sent them packing. Ender's Game 's eugenics, its bipolarity, its ends vs. It's not irrelevant, just dated in its form and style. But not Ender. Nor the heartbeat of the story that pounds across the book's pages and the movie's minutes.

And the movie really does "pound" it. The book is more subtle, more suggestive, scrawled across the screen's opening moments. 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. In his tactical genocide, Ender Wiggin still parrots the deep, resonant wisdom of Pope Benedict XVI: knowledge is never purely a work of the intellect. That sort of wisdom makes the book recommended reading at military academies and marine schools—to know someone you must love them.

As moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre says, the first virtue of knowledge is empathy. There can be no conversation, not even constructive disagreement, apart from empathy.

Author: Orson Scott Card. Lets jump in and find out! Violence : Violence is probably the most significant content related issue in this book. There is a fair amount of it and the consequences of those violent acts range in severity.

The simulation battles are mostly non-lethal. However, there is a fair amount of lethal violence outside of the simulated battles. Ender is a kind kid, but strategic, so when he gets in a fight with a bully, he hurts the bully bad enough in hopes the bully will not want to ever fight Ender again.

Unfortunately, some of these fights become lethal and children do die. Other negative content : As you have probably seen a few times above, bullying is a major theme within the story. Ender is often bullied and ostracized by certain groups. Ender and smaller children are often targeted by older kids on a regular basis. The story tackles some pretty major themes, from global politics to xenophobia.

Please tread carefully in the next paragraph if you do not want a major moment spoiled for you as a reader. Do the means justify the ends? Xenocide does take place during the book, and Ender is manipulated and tricked into committing it.

Ender becomes deeply disturbed by this, and decides genocide is wrong and not worth it. Positive themes : There are a lot of positive themes to take away from this book.

Ender is consistently ostracized, intentionally and unintentionally, but he always finds a friend or someone to care for him. There are many themes of bravery, overcoming the odds, and friendship throughout the narrative.

That proves that while this book is labeled as Young Adult, it very much covers serious themes. As for me, I picked it up randomly. I read it for the first time a few years back when the movie was being released, and I have read it one more time since then. I then listened to the audiobook a month back and was equally absorbed. While I have a couple of nitpick issues with it, I can easily ignore them and enjoy a great story. In a way, Ender was bred for this. Unfortunately, Peter is too violent and dangerous, and Valentine is too soft and sweet.

Ender is the perfect balance as the third child, strategic and driven, but also compassionate. Ender is an extremely likable and relatable character. He struggles with his own fears and limitations.