Ender's Game Character Analysis Essay

Cadet Semaan, Christopher E.
Military Science and Leadership 210
Captain Woods
November 26, 2014
The Leadership of Ender
Ender’s Game is a book that was published twenty-nine years ago, a science-fiction novel with wildly bizarre scenarios played out on Earth, space stations, and alien planets. But the core concepts of the novel are true regardless of the impossible scenery, the true aspects of leadership, knowledge, power, and character. Andrew “Ender” Wiggin possessed many characteristics that made his a superior leader, if not the best possible leader, than any of his comrades. Among these, the three main leadership traits he possessed were Empathy, Trust, and Patience.
Empathy
The defining character trait for Ender was his ability to be empathetic. In contrast with his two older siblings; Peter, who lacked empathy to the point of cruelty bordering sociopathic tendencies, and Valentine, who possessed so much compassion that she was unable to be a military commander due to her
pacificity. Ender is described several times as being an ideal medium between the two. He is able to understand the strengths and weaknesses of both his friends and his enemies, and how best to use or exploit them. Also, he can effectively understand the point of view and motivation of his opposition. These abilities set him apart from other commanders early on in the novel.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” (Sun Tzu, The Art of War). This quotation by the ancient but brilliant military commander Sun Tzu exemplifies much of Ender’s own military prowess. Ender, through his empathetic nature, seeks to understand as much as he can about those with whom he commands, who commands him, and the forces he is fighting against. Ender understands the importance of knowing the best ways to utilize his armies, not independently, but in a comparison with how the enemy intends to use his army. In game theory terms, Ender attempts to gain the concept of Nash Equilibrium, a situation in which Ender is using the best strategy he can compared to the opponent’s strategy. Early in the book, Ender realizes that many of the commanders in his battle school utilize the use of mass formations of their “toons,” which are similar to or short for platoons. The formations launched by other commanders do not take any strategies of the mission variables into account, and whether they win or lose is more a result of the skill of their soldier’s shooting abilities and less of their strategizing abilities.
When Ender is promoted to commander of Dragon army, he is given the same amount of soldiers as every other army: forty. However, right off the bat, instead of organizing four toons of ten, he began his organization with five toons of eight. This gave him an advantage over every other army at battle school, because he would be able to perform more complex operations. Furthermore, he then divided his toons into half-toons, very similar to squads, each with a separate leader. Instead of organizing and training mass formations, Ender learns the different skills of each of his soldiers, allowing toon leaders to lead their individual toons with the same mission objective as the rest. What ensues are devastating defeats for Ender’s opponents. Ender knows what his army is capable of and how best to utilize them, and he also knows how the enemy commanders work. Through this, he suffers not a single defeat, consistently using this same understanding of his army and the opponent armies to his advantage.
Later, when Ender is at command school, Ender learns to a greater extent the abilities of his jeesh, discovering individual strengths of each of his eleven-crew members. He makes note of these observations in the novel, such as the comments that “Dink, who deftly carried out instructions but was slow to improvise; Bean, who couldn’t control large groups or ships effectively but could use a few like a scalpel, reacting beautifully to anything the computer threw at him; Alai, who was almost as good a strategist as Ender and could be entrusted to do well with only half a fleet and vague instructions.” (Card, Orson Scott, Ender’s Game). Ender also shows that he understands the other side of this concept, and while talking to Colonel Graff, says, “Tell me what you know [about the Formics, or “buggers”], and maybe I’ll learn something that I need.” (Card, Orson Scott, Ender’s Game). This understanding, especially of his own soldiers, leads into the next trait Ender exhibits: Trust.
Trust
A key part of the book, especially the end of the novel, is the trust Ender places in his subordinated, and the absolute trust they place in him. Even more so is the trust placed in him by the starship pilots, who have never seen or met Ender, but trust that he will lead them to victory if they follow his commands. Trust is necessary for leadership, and Ender earns it from those who follow him.
The first clear set show of trust Ender places begins when he is named commander of Dragon army in battle school. In dividing up his toons, he has five toon leaders, and five toon seconds leaders, or roughly the equivalent of ten squad leaders, five of which double as platoon leaders. Unlike the other commanders, and as discussed previously, Ender forgoes the mass formations with no room for improvisation used by commanders of the other armies, and develops a flexible strategy, utilizing all of his toons individually, instead of army sized formations. The key point in mentioning this method is that Ender trusts each of his toon leaders to make adequate calls depending on the situation and mission variables. Under different situations, toon leaders develop individual strategies for their small group. What makes this process successful is that all of the toon leaders have the same objective: to win the game by eliminating all of the other players. So, while each toon may be performing a separate technique or attack or withdrawal or other battle drill, they are all working towards the same end goal. The trust and independence given to the toon leaders by Ender makes them the most successful army in the history of battle school, forcing the faculty to attempt to give unfair advantages to the other team in an effort to make Ender innovate more innovative ways to be successful. One such instance of Ender’s army placing trust in him is when they arrive at a battle ten minutes late. The enemy had already set up a position around the entrance door Ender’s soldiers would have to pass through to enter, so Ender innovated a method of using frozen soldiers as shields to attack and distract the enemy while other soldiers moved freely to defeat the enemy quickly.
The mutual trust of Ender and his soldiers is again expressed in command school, where Ender commands his jeesh to great success. Trust goes along with his empathy, and makes Ender a powerful commander. But just as important as the strength of his army, the timing Ender uses is essential as well. For this reason, his Patience is the ultimate trait that allows him to be successful where others have failed.
Patience
From the beginning of the novel, Ender’s ability to remain patient is one of his greatest strengths in overcoming adversaries who may have other advantages over him. When Ender is on the shuttle to battle school, Bernard, a classmate of his, pesters Ender on a pattern. Ender waits to make sure he understands the pattern, allowing the boy to continue to hit him, and then catches Bernard off guard, throws him, and breaks his arm. Although the extent of the damage was unintentional, Ender used his patience to prevent himself from getting pestered further. He comments many times that his patience exceeds that of adults, and it continues to assist him in defeating his enemies.
Another major aspect of the patience he retains is his method of not only stopping someone from trying to fight him, but stopping someone from ever trying to fight him. This type of patience goes along with proactivity and careful thinking, instead of reactivity and hasty action. When Stilson, a bully from Ender’s school, attempts to fight him, Ender knocks him unconscious. Immediately following, Ender recognizes the danger he now faces from Stilson’s friends, all of whom are stronger than he is. In order to prevent himself from having to ever fight Stilson or his gang again, Ender beats Stilson while he unconscious, and badly. Unintentionally and unknowingly, he murders Stilson. The same event happens later in battle school when Bonzo, a former commander of him, leads a gang to attempt to murder Ender. Ender beats Bonzo also, using his speed and knowledge of how Bonzo would fight, as well as relying on Bonzo to use his own advantages of size of strength. In order to not have to fear retaliation by Bonzo or his gang, Ender again accidently murders the boy. The result remains the same, however: these boys never bother Ender again.
Ender applies his patience to his army as well, in his methods of training and drilling. He leads several practice sessions a day for his army, more so than the other armies at battle school do, and trains and drills them repeatedly. He practices the method of overtraining, in which he makes his army practice a technique until the have it down one-hundred percent, and then continues to drill them on the same technique until it is so natural for them they do not have to think of it. This is a method that requires much patience, because after mastering a technique, to continue to train it often seems like a waste of time, but ends up leading to the unstoppable success of his army.
Beyond training his army, Ender also seeks to train himself as much as possible. Initially, in battle school, he is placed in an army that does not train him at all, so he responds by seeking out his own training during his free time to develop as a soldier. He watches others play the games meant to challenge and train the students at battle school, and then learns to play and beat them relatively quickly through his patience in understanding how they work. He masters every game at the school, and then seeks out videos of the old wars fought against the Formics to learn from not only the strategies of the I.F., but also the strategies of the Formics. His patience in developing his personal skills makes him an excellent commander, and more fit to lead than many others.
The final main aspect to his success as a leader is from his innovation. Ender has a brilliant and inventive mind; he is capable of seeing many situations in his head, how patterns fit together, and what strategies counter-act others. He does not hastily dive into a situation which he is unaccustomed to, but rather takes a moment to improvise an adequate solution that maintains his own success. This shows several times in his battle school games, notably when he is to battle against two armies at once in a secure position. He takes five minutes to strategize and develop a plan of attack, not rushing towards a sure defeat, and wins by defeating the system. The same battle plan is echoed at the end of the novel against the Formic main army, when Ender accidently commits Xenocide by blowing up the bugger home world through a mix of diversionary tactics and effective use of firepower. Ender’s innovative ways of accomplishing goals was a major factor in his leadership abilities, and his patience to take the time to do so formed those abilities.
Through Ender’s abilities to empathize with the enemy and figure out their weak points, and then exploiting them by using his own army’s strong points gives him a thorough understanding of best ways to utilize his own forces against any enemy or situation.
His trust placed in those he gives control of smaller groups to develops not only him as a leader, but also helps develop the skills of his subordinates. In turn, the trust he earns for himself allows him to lead effectively and without question, because his subordinates trust he knows what he is doing. Finally, Ender’s patience in all his dealings, his refusal to make stupid, hasty decisions, and his personal and interpersonal overtraining combine to make best use of his tactics and strategies developed from his innovations. These three traits and the characteristics that follow because of them show Ender is an ideal leader, and his character, although fictional, exemplifies the level of leadership all men should seek to
learn.