Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – Episode 13

The Buddies jump into the zero-gravity world of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. They touch on some hot button topics such as: bullying, working from home, video games, and motivation through dire consequences, namely: starvation, torture and violence. They finish off the episode with some deep philosophical questions from listeners.

Next Book: THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME by LAURA DAVE

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Welcome, Buddy Book Club. Thanks for joining us. I’m Dylan here with my tune leader, Keith, to break down some best sellers this week. We’re sticking with the young adult section of the library and aiming our Flash Pistols at Enders Game. If you like to reach us regarding this book or any of our past or future episodes, you can visit our website Buddybookhub dot. Com or slide into our DMs on Twitter or Instagram Buddy Book Club podcast. You can listen to us on itunes and Spotify, so please download and subscribe. Oh, Keith, you like that? What do you just call me? You know what? I knew you were going to say that, too. I knew you were going to say that. Thank you, Keith. I feel like a lucky little pinhead fart eater that we get to do this book. I think it’s your second time reading in this game. Yes, we’ll get into it, but second time was much more enjoyable. I think listen to the audiobook made it a little bit better for me, and I had a better appreciation this time around. Okay. Yeah. So you did the audiobook, as did I this time, which I only found out afterwards. Or since Scott Card, the author. He has a background in playwriting and had always envisioned this book as an audiobook, but his preferred reading method was having it read aloud to you by someone else. So we won. We beat the buggers. That’s why I listened to it. That’s really the reason. So this book was written in one, 9000 hundred and 85 by the aforementioned Orson’s Cod Card. This is a Hugo and Nebula winner, which is, I think, our third so far in this podcast, right this season, 15 and then American Gods. It’s my special effects category, the Oscars. If you go through best pictures, there’s lots of misses for the Oscars, but if you go through special effects, they’re all absolute bangers. So I’m wondering. Well, I would say it’s one for three right now. All right. Fair enough. We both didn’t really love that season, but I liked American Gods, but either way, this is a Hugo and Nebula winner. It was originally a short story published in Analog magazine in 1977. What’s interesting is the novel was only written. The novel being Endorse Game was only written because Orson Scott Card was writing speaker for the Dead, and he realized the first 50 pages made no sense and just was really boring. And he was like, I need a background for this, and it just hit him that he should tie Ender’s Game into speaker for the Dead. And that’s why he decided to write Ender’s Game into a novel, which thank you for doing that. I don’t know if. Have you read any of the sequels? No, I think you’d mentioned it gets a little bit outside of the young adult audience selection, which once it goes outside, that it’s a little by my reading level, so we usually don’t go into those realms. Yeah, they’re great. I mean, they’re definitely more adult, at least the speaker for the Dead and Xenoside, but I haven’t read. He kind of offshooted it into a different branch, and one of them is endorsed’which is like the other branch, and it’s basically the same book. But from Beans perspective, I haven’t read that. But supposedly it’s awesome. This book, I think, is kind of like a mix between Starship Troopers and Harry Potter. That’s how I always saw it. And maybe it’s because I was of the age when I think I read this book right around when I saw Starship Troopers, but instead of Harry, we have Ender Wiggin. He’s kind of like the Baby Bear and the Goldilocks story. He’s not too nice, not too ruthless. At least in his domicile. He’s just humane enough to not torture woodland critters and just ruthless enough to commit Xenoside, but still feel really shitty about it. I know what Xenoside means, but our audience might not. So once you explain that word and tell me exactly what it means because I know it’s just genocide, but instead of people, they are aliens. Okay, like, Xenomorph from the Aliens movie was just like, so now you’re speaking my language. That’s all I needed to hear. Yeah. So, I mean, that’s pretty much this book. It’s that whole story of Ender killing a bunch of buggers, but really, it’s been loaded with a bunch of battle scenes, which I would say is the best part. Anything else to add in the summer? No, this is your book. You covered it, I think adequately. I think we like to use some analogies I wanted to throw out mine, which was it’s a mix of Independence Day and Lower the Flies, which I’ll get into that too. Also, I think it’s a good little smart combination there, Keith. Good point. Yeah, well done. Well, before we dive into our categories, we got a lot going for you. We like to enjoy a libation based on the text. Unfortunately, the six to eleven year old boys obviously aren’t tilting back any cold ones. I don’t even think they drink anything. There is no reference of drinking anything in the book, except they did talk about how shower toilet water water was being recycled on this battle station. Yeah. At one point, he’s like, Get my sweat. Everyone deserves to drink it today because I worked hard or something. I was like, Wait, what? Yeah. And then Bonza’s blood is going to be mixed in with the water that everyone else is drinking. It’s like chill, bro. It’s quite the smorgasbord of different things in that water. And in order to recreate that, if you’re bold, I’d say, pause the podcast. Head down to your local pub. Grab that little plastic trough they have at the bar, pour it into a tall glass, and that’s our Enders drink. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be doing that I’m just going to enjoy a Miller light. So here we are. Some would say that’s the same thing. Got it. How dare you? How dare you? It’s a fine American pillsnake. All right, let’s jump into favorite scene. I assume we’re going to have a battle from heavy take here, but please start us off. What do you got for 15? Yeah. So I didn’t actually have one specific scene. I’m kind of a little broad brush here, but my favorite really was just the overall school interactions, the interactions between all of the kids, those who are real, really well written. I think this book is like a psychology book wrapped in a scifi novel. If I had to guess that Arson Scott Card has some sort of psychology background because he seems to get inside people’s heads. And that’s where the whole just reminded me a lot of the flies thought process came from, because that book is all about power structure and the way people react in groups and how people take dominance and like how you show dominance. And that’s basically what the whole school sequence was about is him being like, this is how I have to gain control and win, which I thought was really cool. And then obviously mixed in. That is like his strategy and things like that around it. But that was all derived from the fact that he had the psychology that’s above everyone else’s, in my opinion. Yes, I thought it was cool how this book perspective is Ender’s thoughts. For the most part, obviously, they jump into some, like, Valentine’s stuff and whatnot and graph gets in there. But for the most part, it’s just like coming from Ender’s head and how he works his strategy out, which is really fun, especially as, like a fan of Survivor, which is like, you’re just wondering, what are these people thinking the whole time? And so when he’s beating people up, it’s like, I got to take this guy out. Yeah, they kept reminding me like, step on their throat, step on their throats. Like when they’re down. I kept thinking of someone yelling that out. So my favorite scene, at least to start it off, I have a few. I got a couple. Okay. But Enders intro to the battlegroundtraining with Petra. So his first step into the battle room, feeling totally topsyturvy Petra explaining to him some basic maneuvers. It immediately clicks for him, and he sees the strategy within there. And if I lean my legs up like this and freeze my legs, this happens. It kind of reminded me of Oliver Wood introducing Harry to Quidditch. It’s a blood or Harry, that’s the same scene as give it here Mount Floyd, right where he gets on the broom and just flies off. No, that’s before it. No, it’s after it’s after that’s. Because your cousin professor McGonagall. Yes, she sees Harry do that. Grab what is it? The remember all. God damn, I’m good. He grabs the remember all. And she’s like, oh, wow. All right. He can hang. And she’s like, Harry, hear me? Oliver Wood. And he’s like, oh, Hello, Harry. How are you doing, Oliver? He’s like, this is a bloody. We’re playing the baiters. Is this from the movie or is this the voice? You just believe the baiters. Take the bludgers and they use it to take the coffee. No, that’s in the movie. That’s all. The one character. He’s Scottish, which I just I love also, Cho Chang is like a Scottish actress, Asian Scottish, who would have known. But, I mean, it’s kind of like what we’ve talked about before in previous podcast, the beginning of a superhero movie, how they become the superhero. This is seeing Ender take that. And I just love that stuff because, you know, there’s so much more to come with the battle room, the ambush, because Engineer does those little Launchy practices, and they pretty much get ambushed by the older kids. And it was like a fight between the jets and the Sharks and West Side Story when Enders sees them all coming and then just looks at his launches, he’s like, Go Nova. It’s like, let’s go. They explode out of it into their formations. It’s super cool. And then even at the end, when Ender wins, all of his guys are safe. He not only beats the crap out of everyone, but then all of his launches are just jeering back at the older kids, and they are not smart enough. Even though all these kids are geniuses, they’re not smart enough to come up with their own disses. So they’re playing the repeater from Super Troopers. And these guys are like, you suck. They’re like, no, you suck. Just whatever they say, they’re just saying it right back to them. A bunch of six, seven year olds. I loved it. It was great. Okay. It’s hard to envision these kids as, like, seven year olds. Yes. I think this is like almost Game of Thrones ages, where they are like, this girl is seven, but they’re actually like, 14. That’s supposed to be my nephew is five. And I couldn’t imagine in two years being like, all right, I’m going to run this battle school. But I also really liked they did a little thing when he finally becomes commander or whatever of his army. And he starts getting the slips and it’s like, Petrarcanian Phoenix Army 700. This is going to be a battle. And then they don’t really talk about those battles. But it’s just like a montage. If this was the movie, it’d just be a montage of Ender just scraping the floor with all these other older kid armies, and it didn’t really get too into it. But it was one of those things that you really see in your head as you’re reading it. I loved it. Big fan. That’s pretty much it for me. I think there’s an honorable mention for the final battle even though it wasn’t really spectacular. And there wasn’t a ton of strategy talk or individual tactics being discussed. But I like to ender. They’re pulling up to a giant planet. It’s all these spaceships using your imagination, and it’s like the assault on the Death Star. He’s like red to the Red leader. Everyone checking in all these guys, and immediately all he says to him is like enemy gate is down and then ended dropping the little Doctor right on the planet, which I don’t know if they use this as a reference, but the bomb they dropped on Hiroshima was, I think, called like the little boy. So I don’t know if they use that for the little Doctor, but had similar results, except instead of a city, it was an entire planet, but at the same time, tricking ender to commit genocide or in this case, genocide. Yikes, that’s tough. Look by the military, but you got to do what you got to do the first time you read it. How big of a plot twist is that for you? When you find out that he’s actually fighting real buggers and not the simulation, I remember it being a pretty legit plot twist. I was saying the same thing, but I remember also the book was 50 pages left, and I was like, all right, so what’s going on as one of those things? Like, there’s got to be something going on here because they’re just going to have a big battle in the last ten pages. I remember. I wish I didn’t know if I wasn’t reading, like, the physical book, I probably would have been much more surprised. Yeah, it’s not like the end of Star Wars New Hope when they just do, like a metal ceremony. And then that’s it. Okay. There’s only five minutes of this movie. Obviously, there’s the end of it. But I do like how they went into more of it. The book transformed at that point. And I think that’s where he was talking about Scott Card, about how the first 50 pages speaker for the dead didn’t make a ton of sense. He just rolled that in to the end of Ender’s game, so that Ender’s game could have a nice, smooth landing and then could pick right back up for speaker for the dead. But yeah, enjoy it. Let’s get into some stock up. Stock up, stock down, stock up. What do you got? I mean, you know, this one’s coming. I think you’re alluding to this originally. My stock treating kids like adults, is that it? Oh, wow. That was the most obvious one. This is why you treat kids like adults. Hold on. Can you give the listeners some background about why this is important to you? Well, first off, when I see some kid that’s six or seven or eight, whatever that age, I don’t talk baby voice to anyone. I don’t do any baby voices. I don’t talk down to kids. I don’t think kids deserve that. They should be talked to like, they’re normal human beings. And when you talk down to them, that basically prohibits or limits learning or ability to grow as a human. Basically, like the slower kids in class. If you didn’t push them to run faster and everyone ran the same speed, no one would ever get better. Right? You need those people. So what I’m doing is basically lifting everyone up with me when those little kids, when I talk to them because I’m talking normal to them. Mind you, I have the intelligence of a twelve year old, but still I’m bringing them up to twelve. So you were talking down to as a child. Is that what you’re saying? I never cared for it. Not one bit. Did not care for it. Well, the funny thing is that you say talking down to, like, six or eight year olds. But from my memory, you had a one year old niece and you talked to her like she was mental scholar. You’re like, Hello, how are you? It’s good to see you today. She’s like, I don’t speak English. First of all, she’s starting to speak much better English. Now, how do you think that is Uncle Keith, for sure. Yeah. You’re welcome. Anyway, getting back to my Stock up, they treat these kids that are between six and twelve, like, they’re just adults and they can handle real life problems. And what do you know? They basically solve real life problems. They’re smarter than the adults themselves. So treating kids like adult stock up so they don’t get into the PTSD aspect for these children and how the kids are going to be kids. Let the kids be kids. Why are there adults? Why can’t adults do this job? I never really understood that. They think too much kids are free. They can do whatever they want, feelings, emotions, all those other shit that shouldn’t be involved in kids. Which ender does he’s a little drama Queen, but adults are what’s the word inhibited? Yeah. Inhibited by all these other factors where kids are going to be kids, which is what makes them great. Yeah. And kids will be dominoff to kill an entire species without realize they’re doing it right. Exactly. Perfect. That’s what we love. My stock up is one that you had. And I was surprised that you didn’t lead with this, because this comes from a previous podcast. I actually don’t remember which one, but stock up bullying. Bullying has been frowned upon of late in our society. And these kids keep trying to bully ender, and he just beats the life out of them. Literally beats the life out of them. Stillson first in his original school, Bonzo in battle school. He’s a regular old Cameron Poe. If Freddie Conner fans out there, his hands are lethal weapons. He murders people with his bare hands. And what does all that bullying do saves the world. So if he wasn’t bullied he would have never saved the world. Bullying stock up. I’m buying

Participant #1:

you bullying other kids because then you die. It’s being bullied. Yes. Being bullied. 100%. Yeah. Getting beat up as a kid, being bullied. Domestic violence. It might have come from Matthew McConaughey book, but I’m not sure. Okay. Either way. Yeah. We’re all on board. Other stock up for me. Fake news. Peter makes the Bugger War and even other outlets. They make the Bugger war seem bigger than it is. There’s a facade of peace and cooperation when really all the big countries are gearing up for the Earth War after the Bugger war, they’re like, okay, we’ve had all these niceties. Now we’re really going to start grabbing power. So they spread all this fake news, making things seem like they’re one way when actually they’re the other. And it kind of works out in the sense that there’s a big battle and then an eventual Earth wide hegemon emerges and also tying into that related but unrelated stock up for using social media to undermine political systems, back up Russia Demosthenes and locked it. At first they did it. What was weird is that Peter and Val convinced their dad to get them access to some, like, adult chat rooms. Seems kind of creepy. I’d be like, Why do you ten year old and twelve year old or whatever. Ten and 13. Why do you guys need to get into adult chat room concerned a bit. I mean, let’s be honest. When you were before 18 and the site said, Are you 18? Did you say yes or no to that? No, I said, absolutely not under 18. I should not be in this Yahoo chat room. Yeah. Do you remember the early days of the Internet when that was what you did? You just went into Yahoo chat rooms and talked to random people. At least that’s what I did. Yeah, I remember. What was it? A-S-L. American sign languagel? Yeah. You still do that? I’d always make up. I’d say I was like, 17 Kansas female. Weird time, definitely. But yeah. So Peter and Val, they pull a Russia move and infiltrate social media under a variety of aliases, which is crazy. They pretty much create all these different aliases, not just Democrats and lock all these Commenter sections. Really. And they take blogging this 1985. This is pre blogging, obviously. And they take this small website idea of blogging all the way to the top. And not only are they featured on news or whatnot, but Peter takes it all the way to the presidency or in this case, like the hegemonisty. I don’t know what that would be, but blocking using social media. This is crazy. Well done. Well done. Orston Scott Card really saw into the future with this one. Well, actually, can I give a counter argument to that? Because it’s actually my stuff down. Thinking smart arguments matter. That’s the opposite of what happens now, right? They are out there writing these essays, writing these like long winded theories and thoughts around Russian troop movement. I would never see the light day these days or it might be out there. No one fucking would read it. You need clickbait. You need hot takes. You need quick to the point succinct arguments. These essays like, get the fuck out. I disagree, because that’s what the whole QAnon movement was. It was like some guy saying Russia is building up whatever on this line and then all these people taking it and just going with it. So it’s not necessarily that what they’re saying is the end of the 1 second real quick here D man. So last week you’re telling me COBIT’s fake this week you’re talking about all the theories of QAnon. What’s going on over there? What do we got going on here? I don’t know if I trust you anymore. I don’t even know what QAnon is doing. One of their articles, there was a documentary on HBO. I watched it. I look at all sides. I look at all sides. Also, Peter and Val would crush on Parlor. Just saying, did you any other stock ups? How do you know Parlor is the last one I had video games stock up. Interesting. I think I’ve shared this theory with you before, but I’m a huge proponent of the future. It’s just going to be soldiers are going to be run by computers. Right? So it’s going to be the best video gamers in the world being our best soldiers. So that’s what basically this whole book was about, right. I think we talked about this in the podcast before. Oh, haven’t we? Well, either way, they’re also giving out scholarships to gamers now at colleges, which I think is just setting the tone for, like, the CIA to come in and recruit them. I think the colleges know the government knows everyone’s online. Kid, you better learn quick, right? Is what I’m saying. Yeah, because I think we talked about this because a lot of the controls for different, I don’t know, military machines, apparatuses. I don’t know exactly what they are. Oh, yeah. They use, like, Xbox controller. Yeah, exactly. They use Xbox controllers because people are more familiar with them. So yeah. Hey, you know what? I have an addition to video games coming up, but I don’t hate it. My last stock up working from home. Easy. Come on. Ender commands his squad, basically on a Zoom call. They kill an entire bugger race without ever leaving their home. They’re in a spaceship and they kill an entire race through basically Zoom call. So good for us. Good for them. Stock up, working from home. Buy it. Great point. Great point. But now that that’s covered, my first stock down is video games. Don’t care for it. Because in my mind, the news was right. Video games create violence. You can murder an entire species via video games. This is bad. We shouldn’t play video games. Knock down hot take. That might actually work if you were to publish an article on it, but it wouldn’t be a smart of a take. So that’s why it would work for me. Stock down the first one would be dire consequences.

Participant #1:

Yeah. So here’s my problem, kid, is what was the reason I’m just as competitive as anyone out there, right? If I’m between six and twelve, it’s life or death out there for me. Capture the flag. Baseball. Any of those games that used to play back in the day around the neighborhood? Basketball, German spy. If you ever played that. Oh, I haven’t played German spy game played. Hide the pickle. Wait. But anyway, it’s not time for games for your uncle. But, yeah, there really was no dire consequence for why they would take these games very seriously, though. Ender basically has a mental breakdown, has to go back to the homeworld and cries for four months at a log cabin and builds like a canoe to quenches his anger and angst because of the leaderboard. Yeah, bro, it’s a fucking game. Relax. Okay. This isn’t people getting killed or murdered right in front of your face. So what I thought should have happened or changed is that they basically have video of their parents, either like being tortured or not. And now you create that dire consequence, that tension, kid, or you basically say, hey, if you’re not in the top of the leaderboard, 10% of you guys get killed, we fucking murder you guys, right? You’re dark. Well, I mean, this is like Hunger Games, right? That’s the premise of Hunger Games. That’s why they’re literally willing to kill each other in this big battle Royale because the consequences you die if you don’t kill the other person, right? We’re here is like, why are we what’s the reason that these people are so angry or so willing to kill people? Because, well, Enders MJ it’s as simple as that. He’s just got that competitive gene. He wants to win, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes. Whether it be like, who was it Spud Web or whoever that he got into his head so bad the guy had trauma and never played basketball again. It’s the same idea with Ender. He just wants to win. That’s how they’ve been bred. They’ve literally been bred for this. And they understand what they’re training for. They’re training for the impending bugger war, which, to them from all the news and everything they’ve heard is like the end of the human race. If we don’t have this figured out and they’re all geniuses, they’re all super geniuses. So it’d be like saying there’s no competition in Harvard or something like that. These guys are fighting tooth and nail to be the best. Yeah, but people are going to kill each other in Harvard, and also they’re all in the same team. So if you take Starship Troopers, for example, there’s definitely enemies within the Squadron there. But by the end of it, they’re all fucking boys and girls because they’re girls and boys. They’re both in the army there. So they’re all basically on one team now, even though they’re competitive at first, that’s what it should be. But in this, they literally have people trying to kill each other within their own Squadron. So if you had it your way, Top Gun would be all volleyball scene and no mock battle scene. Top Gun would just be Ice Man and Maverick high five. And throughout the heart, there should be a dire consequence for not winning. There is you get washed out of the school. They said that the worst case scenario is you basically lead some smaller Squadron. That’s, like, whatever. Who cares? We’re going to agree to disagree because they’re trying to get the best Commission. They want to be leaders of a Starship. These are guys who want to be commanders in the real military. Otherwise, you’re going to be competitive. But do you want her to tell me that I had to go off to Maine and build a canoe for five months because I was stuck in the leaderboard at one point and the game wasn’t that fair. So I’m really distraught over this. Does that make sense, or would it make more sense if you were like, I basically saw people’s parents getting a pomped because I fucking beat all their kids, right? That makes more sense to me that he’s so distraught because he had to win. But it also fucked over so many people that he won. It’s like a give and take right where now it’s just like, what are you upset about? Who cares? You came in first. The game was a little bit rigged. Get the fuck over it. Right, buddy? I think we’re going to get into that aspect. That aspect I can agree with of, like, Ender being a puzzle booth. A what? A busy booth. But outside of that, I think there is competitive. They were in a competitive environment. I have no problem with competitiveness. I just wanted dire Straits going on. I got you. Thank you. Dire consequences. Kim, did you have any other stock down? I had one more peaking early, then just saved the world at, like, eleven or twelve. And then kind of lifestyle. After that, it sounded like they wrapped up his life in the next 30 pages. And it was like, yeah, and he led this village. It was all right. Basically just saved the world already. Kind of sucks. So remind me of me. Your boy used to be blonde hair, have a rocket arm. A QUB eight years old. Peaked at eight ever since then. Been downhill, man, you don’t want to peak early. Definitely don’t want to peak early. I can agree with you there. Although I will say Ender has other accolades later in life. I mean, he becomes the speaker for the dead. That’s pretty cool. It’s a second chapter. It’s a different chapter, but it’s the second one. All right, fair enough. I didn’t know I didn’t have any other stocked out, so I was good there. I think after dire straight or dire consequences, I just want some parents to be killed or people to be tortured. Oh, that’s clear. That’s very clear. Did you have a favorite character in this one or someone that sang to you? Mine was by far, Mazer Rackham. Okay, shout out first to have you ever seen Rackham Willie on YouTube? Give it a look up. My roommates in College absolutely loved it. It is a homeless guy that just says Rackam all the time. Rack them, rack them. But anyway, that’s why all I could think of any time they said his name, look it up, you’ll understand. Hilarious. But I love me. Some master Miyagi and Danielson relationship just love it. The old guy and the young kid, and he’s basically teaching them away. Especially loved how he came in Super Super hot. The first scene just basically comes in, starts beating up an eleven year old. Just love to see that for no reason. Just loved it calls ender like a huge pussy to his face multiple times, which I loved. He was like, hey, buddy, I spent 50 years flying, like, around or whatever and doing nothing in space. Yeah. So all the people I know could die just to come back and train you. So shut the fuck up. Stop complaining. Yes, someone needed to tell Enders up being a whiny bitch. And this guy comes in and does it. He also seemingly for such a smart group of people, it seems like a lot of this stuff that enters. Obviously. Smart, like, oh, wow. He picked this up really quickly, but it seems like for all these amount of smart people that they should be picking up on things a little bit quicker than they are. And it seems like him and Mazer are the only people that see the obvious things, like when they’re like, oh, I went and destroyed a whole village and they just stopped having willing to live. I’m like, oh, so they killed the King or they did something basically, and they’re like, no, that makes too much sense. We’re going to go away from that theory. Like, Wait, what? No, wait. What is indeed. What are you talking about? So Mazer basically does, like, a suicide mission blows up the Queen, right? Yeah. Okay. And he tells everyone, this whole society of insects, which we have insects on our world, are all about protecting the Queen, and they basically don’t have a brain without this one person, which is why they all died after I killed this one thing. And they’re like, that sounds ridiculous. That sounds made up. I was like, Wait, what? Like, how is this? That’s the only thing that makes sense. There’s no other logical conclusion from what just happened. And he’s like, no one believes me. And there’s, like, you know what? I believe that. Yeah, obviously. What are we talking about here? I mean, I did like how Mazerrackam came in hot for sure. And I also like how they didn’t stretch that out, like, oh, who is his mystery teacher? And then at the end, it was like, I Maser Rackham. Oh, wow. It was just like, yeah, I’m as a Rackham. We got to the point because it was pretty obvious that that’s who it was based on what was going down. But I would say the only person that had that same level of intellect was being who I really liked. I mean, he’s the only one that gives back to Ender, and he’s the only one that kind of reads it the same way that Ender does. But he’s not such a busy booth about it. So I appreciate that. And I mean, obviously Ender is a great character. He does have his sad point. But I think that’s important. Ender, as a battle commander, is probably my favorite character, just like when he’s doing his battle commanding because he does almost like his best John Taffer impersonation, especially when he gets his army. He’s like, You’re only good at the process of elimination because you do it every day on the toilet. Like, okay, chill, chill, bro. Like, we’re eight years old. Okay, give us a break. But I did really enjoy it. And that’s back to the scene when he gets that first army, like his army. I think it’s Dragon Army, and pretty much like, teaches them everything straight from the beginning. Hey, who can use this process of deduction? Who understands what I’m saying? And Bean shines Bean’s. Great. I actually might now have to read Shadow or Under Shadow. Excuse me, because I love Bean. Did you have anyone else that you like for character wise? No, I just wanted to add also one quote in mezzar. He’s like, all right, now the real training begins. He tells him he’s going to grind and they’re down. And then there’s, like, you can’t grind me down. Mezzar. This is literally right after he took five months thing, I’m grounded ground down from playing Catch of the Flag too much. And it’s unfair. And are you fucking serious, bud? And then he obviously gets all pissy and ground down and has to sleep for, like, six days. Yeah. To be fair, he did kill an entire species. But this was before that. He was like, this game is too much for me. I can’t do it anymore. Jesus Christ. Yeah. And see the person who puts him in that spot graph? I actually really enjoyed graph. He’s in a tough spot. He likes Ender, but he has to save the world, and he knows the potential. So I found him to be a pretty good character, especially when you jump into his head a few times. And you see there’s so much more going on here than just Ender and battle school. There’s graphs trying to protect him, but also realize that he needs him. I thought Graph and Mazurakam just could be the same person, right? He comes back a little bit earlier. I think they did that in the movie. I forget the movie. Yeah, I forgot the movie, but I think Harrison Ford kind of plays both characters graph and Mazer very similar. One is just a war hero, and they’re both like, I love him too. Don’t worry. Let’s get into some love hate. What do you love about the book you already mentioned? Starship Trooperfield love that I love the video game aspect to it. It seemed like a lot of strategy. A lot of kind of like a real time strategy going off in your head. It’s pretty awesome to visualize it, especially considering it’s like zero gravity. There’s no left right, whatever. It could be very confusing and cumbersome to explain. And I feel like OSC does a pretty good job doing it. So respect. I did have another quote that I really like, too. Which kind of summarizes? The whole book is. Ender says, once I understand the enemy in that moment, I love them. Then I destroy them. That’s not some psychopath type shit to say, which I can’t. It’s like Christian Bale and American Psycho or something like that. Or who’s the guy from Bates Motel or psycho? Just like, once I understand her, then I have to destroy her. Chill. That’s the ender we like. I mean, what? Pardon? Yeah. I like the more Peter version of Ender Torturing Woodland Critters. What about you? I loved everything in the battle room. I mean, I think I’ve made that very clear, but especially when I first read this book. This was a summer reading book going into 9th grade from 8th grade. You always get the summer reading books and they suck like, it’s just the worst books. And this was on there. And it was like a choice at the school. Like, hey, you can pick two out of these four books or something. I was like, oh, that’s cool. And this book was on it. And I was blown away because every other summer reading book had sucked, and I usually just didn’t do it and would buy that little SparkNotes thing back in the day. This is pre Internet, really? Or early Internet, and this book just reignited my love for reading because it was so well written and it was right up my alley. That wasn’t necessarily love. I just went into that. But God, thank you for that Lexington school system. That’s what you ever did for me. I appreciate it. And one of the things I loved about it was like the world building within it. There’s a history of the Bugger Wars. This story takes place on the Eve of the third formic war, and the former wars is all the Bugger Wars they’ve been going on for 100 years, the buggers came, they fucked shit up. Mazer Rackham came to the rescue. Actually. You know what? Maybe this is more like, did you ever see that Freddie Prince Jr. Movie, Wayne Commander? No. Maybe it’s more like that. Yeah, that’s a deep cut, but a decent movie from what I remember. I mean, it’s a horrible movie, but a decent, good, shitty Sunday movie if you’re into the scifi, but I just like the world building where the Warsaw Pacted, the Russia, hegemony that whole thing, the hegemon. It was great. That stuff. I really in terms of stuff that they really don’t talk a ton about in the book, but it’s addressed enough that you can tell that backbone is there, and it’s real. I love when books do that. I wish they kind of did a little bit more. It seemed like they gave us, like, 5% of the book was that side story, which didn’t necessarily really have anything to do with the story, which I thought was cool enough to make it 15 or 20% of the book. You could have made Valentine almost the other narrator. And it would have been really cool to see both the worlds that was going on, like between them. I think it talks about way more in Andershadow, and it’s also addressed in the other ones, but the other ones are kind of different stories, and they’re in the future. I also like how our loved excuse me. How this book came about was whether that be from that short story, the idea of it being called Ender’s game, he thought or Card thought that was kind of silly, but it was basically around the end game and chess. So he was like, Endgame. Oh, Ender’s game. My main character’s name is Enders, which I didn’t know before, and he wrote it or at least had the idea of it around the Vietnam War. And his brother was going into basic training. He knew that he was right around military age. He’d be doing that. So he was like, what is good training? What is bad training? And he was close to, like I said, close to the draft age and basic training was around the corner. So he was thinking about how if you were in a war, like training, having live bullet shot over your head, like, people can die, what would training be like in the future? And so that gave him the idea for the battle school, and which was basically the center for the book. He was like, battle school. Okay. Cool. There’d be the space battle school that was zero gravity. And you’d use laser beams that just, like, stunned people. It’s like a very simple concept that made it ridiculous. Yeah. And then made this crazy story around it. And he actually had a good point about or an interesting idea of what science fiction versus what’s fantasy. And he said science fiction has rivets fantasy has trees and I was like, oh, okay. That actually checks out. What are rivets if you’re building an airplane, like, putting two pieces of sheet metal together, like those rivets, basically, it’s metal fantasies is like, us out in the Woods or wilderness or, like, some distant world that involves that. And Sci-Fi is like, futuristic. So it has more metal. Yeah, space, futuristic stuff. But actually, that was pretty good. But, yeah, how this book came about. I really love that. And I only found that out later, but I really enjoyed it. The last one I had was just the idea of a speaker for the dead. I know it kind of comes in later in the book, but it just seems like a cool Irish tradition to me instead of having, oh, wow. This person was amazing. They were so good. It’s like, no, I’m going to chat with this guy, like, a year before he dies. And then I’m just going to tell you how it is at the funeral. We’re going to drink whiskey. We’re going to all sit around and we’re going to, I don’t know, a year before he dies. Well, I guess if someone does a tragic accident, you don’t know. But he did say with Peter, like, at the end of it, he was like, oh, Peter asked me to write his kind of story, and he told me all the good things and all the bad things he had done. So I think there’s a better way to kind of remember someone speaker for the dead. Let’s talk about all the good things and all the bad things you have done that’s on. Yeah, just that. What did you hate about it? So you mentioned, like, an MJ mentality earlier. Ender a lot of times was like, I don’t want to play their game. I don’t want to give up. He didn’t really have that mentality in my mind. I also noted that after he basically destroyed the buggers, they’re like, Well, we needed someone that had empathy to understand the enemy. But they already mentioned earlier in the book that Peter’s best trait is literally understanding weaknesses of his opponent. That was literally the biggest thing he did in exploiting it and being ruthless. I don’t get why Peter wasn’t the person you wanted to pick here. I think it was because he couldn’t lead a group. I mean, he obviously can’t lead a group of people, but not with the compassion that Ender could. Okay, where those people would literally do anything for him, all his two leaders. I think that would explain a lot better. Okay, that makes sense. And then I really don’t like how Ender sends what must be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of starships and soldiers to their death in a suicide mission. And then the whole time he’s crying about these insects from another planet. Like, what? How about the humans he just killed didn’t give a shit about them, did not care at all about them. It was a sentence. It was one sentence. Wait, there were people in those ships. Okay, that sucks. But what about these aliens that have attacked us? What about them? I mean, I did have for my hate as well. Like, Ender being a little bitch. And I’m not here to rag on six year olds, but here we go. Twelve at that point or whatever. I’m not here to rag on twelve year olds, but here we go. Two armies against one. Oh, they unfreeze, and we don’t. Oh, you don’t give me enough notice before the battle. It’s like, you know what you’re training for, right? Do you think these guys on Hamburger Hill and Vietnam were like, oh, there’s all these Viet Kong hiding in holes on this Hill. That’s not a fair fight. It’s like, no, you got to go up there and do it. This is what you’re training for. And obviously it’s horrible, but you’re doing it in a safe environment here. So now is the time to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. He’s also blowing everyone out. So it’s like, no, I want to keep on blowing people out. This is like, don’t make anything challenging. Yeah, he’s like, I’m going to take my ball and go home because he lost one point. Ender says when he’s headed towards the school on why? Basically, it may not make sense to attack the buggers. They haven’t even launched a third attack on us yet. What the fuck? Glad he wasn’t commanding us during World War II. It’s like, hey, Pearl Harbor happened, but they’ve only attacked us once. Let’s wait. A couple more attacks. See what happens when they get to California. That’s fine. Then we attack them after let the Japanese take the Marshall Islands, let them take Guam, let them take Australia. Once they take Australia, then we’re really upset, which also ties into one of my aides, which is the buggers themselves. There was way too much love given to the buggers. Too much. Hey, their idea at the end of, oh, we didn’t realize you were sentient when we first attacked you like, our bad. That doesn’t fly with me. You checked out the society. You saw all of the technology and stuff. Yes, I understand that they didn’t have a hive mind like you did. But if you were that advanced, you may or may not realize that these creatures have a lot going on in this society. They have starships. They have stuff like that. They’re not just non sentient beings, which is basically what they said. Like, oh, you guys don’t have a hive mind. So you’re nonsense. And we could get into, like, a deep idea of alien species and what they must think. But, no, I’m sorry. We’re coming for that ass. I’m not going to just sit around and be like, and you also never sent anything to say. Like, my bad. You never waved the white flag. Sorry. I’m not sorry. You’re all dead. They’re still attacking all the ships. When they came, they went in multiple battles after that. The first Bugger war is like they sent a scout ship or a giant Scout ship that then fought people on. I think it was in Asia, like in China. They fought a bunch of people in China. And then we killed that Scout chip. So then they sent an entire assault force, which is when Mazer Rackham killed the Queen. How at any of those points did you not realize you were fighting sentient beings? Like, if I stepped on an Ant and then all of a sudden, all the ants came together and attacked me back in one map floor. I’d be like, yeah, I’m probably not going to fuck with these. And I weigh white flag and be like, my bad aunts. I’m good. I’m sorry. So, yeah, this compassion for the buggers. I’m out. Plus, they’re ugly, we assume definitely. Are you into buggers? I’m not going to say no until I see what they look like. Do you have any L for hate? No. I think we kind of beat a dead bugger, if you will. Oh, what about any lingering questions about the book before we get into a listener mail? Can you kick someone in the groin and murder them? That’s what I wanted to ask. That was Bonzo. Yeah, well, he said he headbutted him and he broke his nose and his nose went into his brain unlaw. Cameron Poe. I thought he kicked him in the nuts and then he died. I want to read it like that. After he headbutted him, he then kicked him in the nut, just like a little insult to injury. Yes, that was a kick that killed him. He shot his nuts back into him and his nuts exploded. Yeah. What about you for laying questions? Would ender be the best Survivor player of all time? I mean, he’s the most observant person I think I’ve ever read. He just sees everything that’s happening around him, which is very important for the show. Survivor people trust him enough to be governor. At the end, he becomes governor. And then even as governor, he’s still working hand in hand with these people, like building barns, building, whatever. So he works around camp. He’s super observant. He knows when people are coming to backstab him. I think if he was on Survivor, they wouldn’t even invite him back because he win every time. I’m going to be honest, I don’t watch Survivor big mistake. Not that I’m not into it. It’s just one of those things where I needed someone to. I’ll send you some seasons. I’ll send you some seasons, but it’s more like the social aspect of it. What I like to do is you find someone who hasn’t seen a season that you haven’t seen, and then you guys watch the first episode and then do the same thing with the great British Bake off it makes it more enjoyable. But after the first episode, you then have the first five minutes of the second episode to pick three characters who then are like, Those are your horses in the race. This is how I get into it. Tell the point system if you want and be like, all right, if they’re the overall winner, you get ten points. If they come in the top three, you get five points, whatever the case is. But you pick those three ponies, and then it makes watching the show better because not only you’re rooting for someone. Yes. Not only are you rooting for them emotionally, but then it’s like, oh, we need these guys to win. This is big. Yes, I did that with a lady friend of mine, and she actually picks three out of the top four. Goddamn. Yeah, she must be a very high emotional intelligence. Yes, she reads people. Well, I guess, but, hey, she hangs on with me. So you can’t read people that well. Got him other questions. Anderson, the guy that leads the if or whatever. He becomes NFL Commissioner. At the end of this book, he says football is like watching Slugs Move or something like that compared to battle school. So why not just start a battle leak? Why not just start a televised battles that you already know? People will literally kill each other if they’re in competition in this game. So, yeah, you can’t do that, kid, obviously. Yeah, it just seemed like that’d be a better sport. I mean, even in Starship Troopers like we talked about before, they have football on that. And it’s a little weird. That’s super weird. It’s the worst scene in that whole movie. But why wouldn’t they just have some mock battles in space? I would watch that. Are you kidding? You’d be so sick. Yeah, the Olympics are on right now, and I would much rather be watching Battle school. Let’s get to listener mail. You’ve got mail. This first listener mail comes from a listener. Andrew, I don’t know if that’s a joke off Andrew Wiggin, but it comes from Andrew. Maybe you want to stay anonymous. I would like you guys to talk about this quote by Valentine. Those who need power end up in power. What does that say about all of our politicians? Logically, they must be power hungry people. The people who should be in power are probably not because they have no need to be in power. There’s a lot there. Wow. Thanks for sending that in. Much appreciated. This is probably way above our pay grade. We’re talking about fucking battle mission. Not probably. It’s 100%. We’ll take it in quick piece mail. But talk about this going about that. Those who need power end up in power. Keith, how do you feel about that? Well, I actually am probably the most qualified to answer this because from a guy that had one of the power of love overcomes the love of power. The world with no peace was in my high school yearbook, so I pretty much know the answer to this question. Jimi Hendrix. I don’t know. C on Power of Love. I’ve actually seen this bumper sticker on a bunch of hippies cars, so I’m pretty much a hippie. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that. I definitely haven’t. But anyway, I had that quote. So I know this answer. The best leaders are people that don’t want to be leaders. You ever been in any job like the people that play politics and try to rise the top and do like backstabbing, all those things like that that end up getting to the higher levels. Those people are fucking worse. And that’s just X 1000 when it comes to politics and any other organization. So 100% agreed. Fuck those people. The Rock and Math McConaughey should be President, as they say, absolute power crops. Absolutely. And I think people in general have people who seek power. They definitely want that level of influence, but I think they come at it usually from a place of wanting to make positive change for whatever their constituents might be. But once you get power and you see how you can kind of leverage that it changes you. That’s what I think. I don’t really know. Obviously, I’m not a big politics guy. I hate the news. That’s why we read books. Instead, it makes me think about what Uncle Ben said, not the Rice guy, the Spiderman guy. And just that with great power comes great responsibility. And unfortunately, the people in power don’t really show that. But I also think political power is different than corporate power or something, but thanks, Andrew. I appreciate that sending more. I got one too, from Steph from New York City. Checking in number one fan. She’s a first time call, long time listener. Hey, how are you? Yeah, exactly. Love to hear that. Love the candid commentary and dark matter absolute baller of a book. We agree pairs pretty well with the low key show, which is a very good watch. We’d love to hear you all haven’t either. Would love to hear your opinion on the ending, but I haven’t seen it either, but I’ve heard it’s really good. I’m not the biggest Marvel fan, but we’ll see. I enjoy Loki. I love Tom Hiddleston middlesen. Whatever. He’s really good in this show the night watchman. It’s like a one season banger, but I like him a lot. I’ll definitely check it out. It’s bingeable, I’ll binge it. And then the questions here on a scale of one to ten. How stressed out would you be if you realize you’re in the situation? The simulations were actually real. Do you rather have known before or after? And what if one day you realize Super Smash Bros isn’t simulation, but fast? Real great questions. Do you want to take it from the top there? That one might be even more complicated than the last the simulation. One is the first. How stress would you be if you realize you’re an Ender’s situation where, well, once the buggers were all dead, I’d be like, Well, there’s no going back here. I’m not a rear view mirror kind of guy, so I’d be like, Well, there we go. That’s that. Let’s get lunch. That sucks. You would be committing Xenophobia. Xenophobia. Xenophobia. Fear of strangers. Xenoside. Yeah. I’d be like, What’s for lunch. I’m cool with it. Let’s move on. But I would be like, oh, you guys got me. Good. I’m twelve. This sucks. I just killed all these people. Would you want to know before or after the fact? Oh, I definitely wouldn’t want to know before, because just like, Ender, I wouldn’t have killed the bug. I wouldn’t have done it. I don’t think I’m not about to drop a bomb like that. Those things are so hard. I mean, think about it now. We’re still talking about dropping the bombs on Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and no one is talking about the fire bombings of Tokyo. No one’s talking about completely taking Dresden down to its studs, the entire city, which was just as bad, if not worse than those atomic bombs. We’re getting real deep now. I definitely wouldn’t want to know before, but if they told me afterwards, I’d be like, oh, wow, that’s fucked up. I can’t believe I did that, but I wouldn’t be stressed about it. It is what it is in my mind. I would like, morally justify it by the fact that I didn’t know. So I’d be glad they didn’t tell me. It’s like, if you go to the doctor’s office and they’re going to like, as a kid and they’re going to give you the needle, they never give it to you on three. It’s always on two. So I don’t want to know. I want to go. One, two bank. Oh, we’re done. There we go. Let’s get lunch. That’s my idea. I think, too, if I had the option when the commander comes and he’s like, hey, here’s the deal. We’re either all going to die in 20 years and you’re going to have a normal life for the next 20 years, or you have to come to space train for the next ten years of your life, then go fight this huge battle, and then you’ll never be able to come back to your friends or family. I’ll probably take him to 20 years and dying. I’m fine with that. I probably wouldn’t even be in the situation. 20 years is a long way away. Yes, exactly. It’s like, all right. Well, that’s fine. So I probably wouldn’t even be in the situation. And then I also think that you would still end up killing all those people. You know, that experiment where, like, someone presses a button, you don’t see them for prison experiment. So this is why you’re on there? Because, you know, these types of things. I just know thoughts around it. But yeah, basically, all he’s doing is pressing a button because it’s not real. He doesn’t see people dying. You know what I mean? So I still think you do it because it doesn’t actually impact you. You’re just like, all these people are shitty. I’m pressing the button. Fuck them. Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. It’s a tough question. I mean, you’re literally talking about killing an entire species. How would you feel about it? Just hit me out of the dark with that. What’s for lunch? Let’s talk about the Super Smash Bros. One. I didn’t really understand that. I didn’t understand that one. Basically kind of what our debate was in the last episode is what if, like, dreams are real? What if the video games you’re playing are actually you’re actually killing people in Super Smash? So I’m like killing Waluigi. Yes, they’re aliens, right? They’re not from this planet. Oh, yeah. So wait, are we talking about Super Smash Brothers? Are we talking about other people? Super Smash Brothers isn’t a simulation. It’s real. It’s actually, I think calls your money or something like that where there’s, like, people would be more interested there’s users. It’s live and you’re playing online. And those users are dead. For some reason, you just have, like, a ten and a record. And that’s almost like a Black Mirror episode, for sure. I would definitely stop playing the game. I’m not fucking psyched. I don’t want to die either. So if it goes one way, it goes the other way. But if it’s like me killing Bowser, I don’t need like, that’s, like the buggers. Yes, exactly. I don’t need a giant flame turtle in my life. I’m good now you’re on my side. You would kill them. He’s like, whatever. I don’t care. He’s not real. He’s not sentient you’re waiting for the third attack is what you’re telling me. Well, they’ve only attacked us twice. Let’s catch the movie quickly. What do we got here? Who do you have for Ender? Have you seen the actual movie? I did it. Forgot it immediately. Ender. I want the present day actor Noah Jupe. If you’ve seen Honey Boy, he’s just a good kid actor. He’s also in a quiet place too. But he’s not a huge role in that. Oh, yeah, I’ve seen this kid. He’s got the look and he was good in a quiet place. I mean, kids are hard in movies, like casting kid actor. Especially for this, because Ender, he’s six at the beginning of the book and twelve at the end. You’d shorten that up. You’d make him twelve. But I had Elijah Wood as a young Elijah Wood out. Yeah. I don’t know if you ever saw The Good Sun, but that’s a great movie. He’s got the whining down, too. Did you see The Good Son with Mccalli Hawkins? Great movie. You should watch that movie. Really good. So, yeah, I’d have Elijah Wood there. Who else do you have I had Valentine, Emma Watson. Just why not? Yeah. I’ll be honest. The only one I ever had was Graph. And I wanted John Goodman, but I wanted 75% of his Walter character from The Big Lebowski, just like instead of Vietnamese people, it was buggers. That’s my idea. I went with. I also had Tom Felton, who is Draco. Malfoy and as Peter. But just to give a Harry Potter themed. And then I went for Mazer Rackham and Colonel Graph, I combined those characters. I went Clint Eastwood, maybe a little bit younger, but I like the whole, like, these buggers. Yeah, that works. Or Nick Cage one of the two. So would you recommend this book? Yeah. So I think if I had to initially, after the first time I read it, my biggest qualm with young adult is like the whininess of the characters. I’d rather just have people be like, kind of sure of themselves and not the world is out to get me almost twelve years old. Everything sucks. But I really did like the audiobook and like the battle scenes. And if you can get by the somewhat angsty teenage whininess that comes from it, I think it’s a really well built world and great Sci-Fi book. Yeah. I mean, same here. I think I definitely went over how I feel about it and how it made me feel when I was in 8th grade, I’m heavily recommending it. It’s going to be my number one book that we have read so far. Number one for me. What are your top three? It’s this transfer Power and City of Thieves. I forget what mine are. Probably City of Thieves, transfer power and maybe holes. Maybe it’s three for me. That looks great. I want to give you some splurge for this. Yeah. Give it to me. All right. Well, hey, this is great. I’m excited for our next book, which actually what is our next book? The Last Thing he told me by Laura Dave. It has a lot of accolades. Yeah. Reese Witherspoon Book of the Year number one New York Times best seller. Reese Witherspoon Book Club highly anticipated Best book of the Summer. So basically, we wanted to pick a very popular summer book that’s out now. So. Yeah, it’ll be interesting. This is definitely way off of what our typical book is, but I think it’ll be good to change it up. And if worst case scenario is not what we wanted, we can always hash out here as we’ve done many a time. Let’s keep the Beach Reed vibe going. We still got a couple more left. Summer is still strong. Keith, this has been a blast. And, hey, remember, enemy Gates always down.