Archetypes

To reveal much more of the storyline at this point would be a bad idea, as it would give away too much.  Suffice it to say, the ending was brilliant, unexpected, and perfect, all at the same time.

Archetypes

Hero: Ender

Ender sacrifices his life and childhood on Earth with the only family member he loves, his sister Valentine, to save the planet from the buggers.  He has to sacrifice his ideals and personal morals as he becomes more like his brother Peter (hurting people to save or help himself) to make it through school.  He also goes on a personal journey and learns to harness these familial tendencies and use them to make himself and others better.

'I am just like Peter.  Take my monitor away, and I am just like Peter.'

'But to leave Mother and Father, and above all, to leave Valentine.  And become a soldier.  Ender didn't like fighting.  He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid.'

'That's what I'm doing to you, Bean.  I'm hurting you to make you a better soldier in every way.  To sharpen your wit.  To intensify your effort.  To keep you off balance, never ready for anything, read to improvise, determined to win no matter what.  I'm also making you miserable.  That's why they brought you to me, Bean.  So you could be just like me.  So you could grow up to be just like the old man. ... Well, what I've done to you this day, Bean, I've done.  But I'll be watching you, more compassionately than you know, and when the time is right you'll find that I'm your friend, and you are the soldier you want to be.'

'There was no doubt now in Ender's mind.  there was no help for him.  Whatever he faced, now and forever, no one would save him from it.  Peter might be scum, but Peter had been right, always right; the power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you.'

Herald: Colonel Graff

Graff brings Ender to Battle School, taking him away from his family and his life on Earth, and he doesn't sugarcoat what life will be like for Ender.

'... for Ender, the choice has not been made at all.  Conscripts make good cannon fodder, but for officers we need volunteers.'

"How many make it through the first year?" asked Ender.

"All who want to," said Graff.

"Ender," Graff said, "if you come with me, you won't be back here for a long time.  There aren't any vacations from Battle School.  No visitors, either.  A full course of training last unitl you're sixteen years old-- when you get your first leave, under certain circumstances, when you're twelve.  Believe me, Ender, people change in six years, in ten years.  Your sister Valentine will be a woman when you see her again, if you come with me.  you'll ve strangers.  You'll still love her, Ender, but you won't know her.  You see I'm not pretending it's easy."

"... It's like playing buggers and astronauts-- except that you have weapons that work, and fellow soldiers fighting beside you, and your whole future and the future of the human race depends on how well you learn, how well you fight.  It's a hard life, and you won't have a normal childhood.  Of course, with your mind, and as a Third to boot, you wouldn't have a particularly normal childhood anyway."

Shapeshifter:  Peter

Peter is really hard to figure out.  At any one time, you can't tell whether he loves his siblings or not, whether he embodies schadenfreude.  He even sees it in himself.

'He lifted his good, took a step, and then knelt on Ender, his knee pressing into Ender's belly just below the breastbone.  He put more and more of his weight on Ender.  It became hard to breathe.

"I could kill you like this," Peter whispered.  "Just press and press until you're dead.  And I could say that I didn't know it would hurt you, that we were just playing, and they'd believe me, and everything would be fine.  And you'd be dead.  Everything would be fine."'

'Peter walked to the bed, and sure enough, he did not lift himself up to his bed.  Instead he came and stood by Ender's head.

But he did not reach for a pillow to smother Ender.  He did not have a weapon.

He whispered, "Ender, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know how it feels, I'm sorry, I'm your brother, I love you."'

"I know," he said.  "It's what I'm most afraid of.  That I really am a monster.  I don't want to be a killer, but I just can't help it."

Great Mother:  Valentine

As Ender's most loving family member, Valentine symbolizes life, feminine power, and home.

'And as he got into the car that waited silently in the corridor, he heard Valentine's anguished cry.  "Come back to me!  I love you forever!"'

'Valentine celebrated Ender's eighth birthday alone, in the wooded back yard of their new home in Greensboro.  She scraped a parch of ground bare of pine needles and leaves, and there scratched his name in the dirt with a twig.  Then she made a small teepee of twigs and needles and lit a small fire.  it made smoke that interwove with the branches and needles of the pine overhead.  All the way into space, she said silently.  All the way to Battle School.'

'"I'm trying to solve this problem now, with the person Ender loves and trusts the most in the world..."

The only person Ender loves and trusts at all.  She felt a deep stab of pain, of regret, of shame that now it was Peter she was close to, Peter who was the center of her life.  For you, Ender, I light fires on your birthday.'