Characterization Of Valentine

Valentine is the middle Wiggin sibling – two years younger than Peter, two older than Ender – and the only girl. She is kind and empathetic, and represents the super-ego in this metaphor. The super-ego is essentially the hub of morality. It begins to develop at a young age and is shaped by parents and similar authority figures, things that children view as “higher natures.” “When we were little children we knew these higher natures, we admired them and feared them; and later we took them into ourselves” (Freud 18). The super-ego is all the things one has been told to be, and all the things they have been warned not to be. It is right versus wrong.
Valentine's character, at least from Ender’s perspective, is a pillar of moral uprightness. She is kind and good where Peter is vicious and cruel. Where Peter was rejected from Battle school for being too harsh, Valentine was rejected “because she was too pacific, too conciliatory, and above all, too empathic” (Card 255). Unlike both of her brother’s, she is not prone to acts of violence, and expresses an amount of disgust for said acts, from Peter’s skinning of squirrels, to Ender’s ruthless and casual crushing of a wasp.
When Peter pulls Ender into the game of Buggers and Astronauts, Valentine rallies for Ender to be allowed to be the astronaut, as Peter always is. Whether this is a protest on behalf of fairness, or an attempt to protect her younger brother, Valentine is attempting to do the morally right thing, despite her awareness of the very real danger Peter poses, not only to Ender, but to herself. When the game becomes violent, and Peter threatens Ender’s life, claiming that no one would think Peter guilty, Valentine steps in